


Desperate Minds

by waxbirds



Series: Desperate Minds [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, F/M, Reader-Insert, There's mentions of vomiting and blood and alcohol and also guns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-23 21:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12516812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waxbirds/pseuds/waxbirds
Summary: “How do I know you’re not doing…your siren thing?” asked Aaron, giving you a skeptical look.“Oh come on,” you just about snarled, turning on your heel to face the werewolf fully. “I never use my abilities on anyone. Just because I have the ability doesn’t make me a predator. Or a murderer!”“Historically,” he started, crossing his arms and nodding, “your powers make you both.”





	1. i.

You dipped down the nearest alleyway, whipping around the corner of the brick building and nearly crashing headfirst into a grimy dumpster. You sidestepped it awkwardly, looking anything but graceful as you nearly threw yourself off-balance and topped over, and continued your speed walk down the dark corridor. You were just turning another corner down another alleyway that you knew would let out near the road that led home when he caught up to you. You hadn’t seen him coming, but when you sped around the corner, you found yourself stopping short to avoid colliding with his outstretched arm as he leaned against the wall. 

“Fuck,” you swore under your breath, stumbling back against the building in an effort to balance yourself. It played directly into his hand and before you knew it, his other arm was on the other side of you, palm also splayed out against the brick, boxing you in place. With nowhere to go, you looked up at his face as it loomed closer, wanting to punch that smirk right off his face.

“Now, now,” he started, his voice dripping with the satisfaction of getting you where he wanted. “Where do you think you’re going, sweetheart?”

____

_Two Weeks Earlier_

When you’d woken up, warm and content in your own bed, you were sure you hadn’t fallen into the same trap you seemed to walk right into every weekend. You’d go out with your roommates, get drunk and think using your abilities was the best idea you’d ever had; you always woke up somewhere and not quite remember how’d you gotten there.

Today, though, you were definitely in your own bed. That was a good sign.

You only got a moment of silence because no sooner had you let your eyes slide shut then a loud bang erupted from downstairs. You let out a squeak of surprise, shooting up into a sitting position, eyes wide, ready to face whatever it was.

“Sorry!” Your roommate Lindsay shouted from downstairs, the floor between you two muffling her voice.

You groaned, flopping back down onto your pillows. Living with two witches was certainly interesting, if nothing else. Stray magic always did something to scare the shit out of you and there was no shortage of it with Lindsay and Barbara. The two were big on experimental spells, and it often had its consequences. Once, Barbara tried to brew some potion that was supposedly going to change hair color based on mood; it resulted in purple haze in your living room that smelled like marshmallows that took two full weeks to dissipate. That had been one of the less offensive outcomes to an experiment.

You were definitely awake, and laying there, while it soothed the hangover last night you had plagued morning you with, you knew full well that you weren’t going back to sleep. You willed yourself to slide out of bed, dug through a laundry basket for a fresh set of clothes and made your way to the door across the room. You were the only one in the house with your own bathroom, but you needed salt water while your witch roommates preferred to shower in the normal, city provided water. The lack of salt in the water meant it  _hurt_ whenever it came in contact with your skin, and if you were to drink it, you found yourself suddenly ill. Lindsay had bewitched the shower head to add salt to the water, and being as close as you were to the ocean, you went once in a week to collect some to carry around in a water bottle when you needed it.

You appeared from your bedroom about a half hour later, hair dripping wet as you made your way down the stairs. You hadn’t even bothered to wring the water out, just gone in search of your roommate.

“Barb!” you called as you reached the landing. “I need your help with something!”

“In here!” she replied from the kitchen, and when you entered, you found her standing over her cauldron, an iPad in her hand. “I’m trying out a new potion I found on the internet. I’ve got a good feeling about this one!”

“What’s it supposed to do?” you asked curiously, eyeing the concoction that was smoking a light blue color and smelled vaguely of cherries.

“It’s going to help us see at night without any sort of light,” she explained, pouring a vial into the cauldron.

“Why?”

“Don’t know,” she admitted. “Just figured it would be fun to try.”

“Fair,” you sighed, and pointed to your hair. “Think you could help?”

“Think you could give me a challenge?” she countered, chuckling as she put her iPad down. She reached her hands out towards your head, the familiar sparks of purple magic flying between her fingers. Your head felt as if it was tingling, and like you’d stuck it into a wind tunnel that was blowing warm air. After a few moments, the sensation disappeared as Barbara beamed as she pulled her hands away. You reached out to feel soft, dry hair and after a second of a feeling around, you could tell what hairstyle she’d gone for.

“A fishtail braid?” you asked and she nodded.

“It fits, you know?” she said brightly. “Since you’re, you know…” she trailed off, motioning at you.

“I’m not a fish,” you said shortly, shooting her a look. “But thanks, Barb.”

“No problem, kid,” she told you, smiling. “Do you want to try this out when I’m done?”

“I think I’ll pass,” you chuckled, eyeing the bubbling concoction warily. “I’ve lived with you and Lindsay long enough to know better.” You’d only made that mistake once and you’d lost your voice for about a month when drinking a potion that was supposed to fill you with instant joy. It had definitely not done that.

“Fair,” your roommate sighed, reaching for a spoon to stir with. “By the way, I had to borrow the last of your water, but I’ll head down to the beach as soon as I am done here, promise!”

You looked over to the counter where you left your six quart water bottles to see the caps twisted off all of them; the sign they were empty so you actually knew before you needed water. They only lasted you a couple days, and you were lucky it was only a two minute walk to the beach from your house. It had been part of the reason you moved in with Lindsay and Barbara, two witches you’d only vaguely known in college. You could have moved in with your childhood friend and fellow siren, Jon, but one siren made some people uneasy. Two made everyone uneasy.

“Don’t worry about it,” you told Barbara, scooping up a couple into your arm as you reached under the counter for the canvas bag you kept to transport the bottles back and forth to the beach. “I’ll go and try and walk off this hangover,” you explained, sliding all the bottles into the bag.

“That bad, huh?”

“Not too bad, but I feel sluggish,” you sighed. “The fresh air should hopefully help.”

“You’re sure you won’t need help carrying it all back?” she asked, giving you a look. “Because I won’t mind!”

“No, really, it’s alright,” you chuckled, patting your roommate on the shoulder as you passed her, heading towards the living room. “I’ll be back soon!” You headed through the living room to the front door and you’d no sooner made it out to the porch before you found where your other roommate was. Lindsay was standing by the mailbox, muttering to herself as she looked inside.

“So,” you said, squinting and groaning as you stepped into the sun. Oh god, there was that hangover. Mixing it with sunlight made it feel like there was an icepick in your head, but you’d already called attention to yourself and Lindsay was standing up straight and looking over to you. “How, pray tell, does you out here make explosions in there?”

“Well,” Lindsay started, leaning her elbow on the mailbox and crossing one leg in front of the other. “I’m trying to bewitch the mailbox to just put the mail inside for us when it shows up. I had to decide  _where_  inside it was going to go, and I had to set up one half of the circuit,” she explained. “And I might have gotten a couple words of the incantation wrong so loud noises.”

“And scaring the shit out of me,” you added, chuckling a little. “Is it working now, at least?”

“Just about!” she told you, smiling. “It’s only transporting half of what I’m putting in there, but that’s an improvement. Just needs some fine tuning and we’ll never have to go out in the rain for a package again.”

“Sounds great,” you said, “once the loud noises stop, it’ll be the best thing that could be done to a mailbox.” You both laughed, and it was then she spotted your bag and nodded towards it.

“Water time?” your roommate guessed, and you gave her a thumbs up.

“Gotta shake the hangover somehow,” you chucked. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Well, enjoy the walk!” Lindsay exclaimed, opening the mailbox once more. “I’ll hopefully have this all sorted by the time you get back.”

“I’ll take the long way to the beach,” you teased, sticking your tongue out at her before heading towards the sidewalk.

You had gotten incredibly lucky to find Barbara and Lindsay’s listing for a roommate in Barbara’s grandmother’s old house. The three of you seemed to live in near perfect harmony and it suited their needs of having enough space to work, and your need to be near the beach. When you’d lived on the other side of town because it was where the college was, your long journey was rough. You were looking to avoid it, and you’d struck gold.

You could smell the salt in the air before you saw the ocean itself. An easy smile slid onto your face, but as you rounded the corner that would bring the ocean into view, it slid right back off. Not far from you, and directly in your way, was the town sheriff.

You and Aaron Marquis didn’t get on too well, through no fault of your own. He was just, for lack of a better term, a dick. At least, he’d always been kind of a dick to you, and since deciding that law enforcement was his calling in life, he’d become kind of a dick to everyone. There was a rumor that he actually wasn’t that bad; it’d been going around since your days together in college and try as his friends (and you were very confused how anyone could be friends with him) did to convince you, every time he opened his mouth to speak to you, you knew the truth.

The most disappointing part about Aaron was the part where if he would be less of a dick, he’d be attractive. Sure, he was gorgeous, and the way his dress shirt stretched around his biceps insinuated that he could throw you around if he wanted to, but the personality that he had been given couldn’t save those blue eyes.

“Fancy running into you here,” Aaron said, smiling that half smile half smirk he seemed to just always have on his face.

“At the beach?” you asked in a monotone voice, “the only access to water I, a siren, need to survive? Oh yeah, such a shock.”

“It’s nice to see you too,” he chuckled, watching as you stepped around him to the edge where the sidewalk met sand. You headed for the shore and was disappointed to see he was following not far after you.

“I don’t think ‘nice’ would ever be a descriptor I’d use for anything to do with you,” you shot over your shoulder.

“Ouch,” he mumbled. “You know, [Y/N], I don’t see why we don’t get along better. We used to work together on projects all the time. You’d think that’d be a good bonding experience.”

“It is,” you sighed, reaching into your bag as you made it to the water, stopping just before where the damp sand began. “Except that’s only true if you  _actually_  work together. You used to let me do all the actual work and just smile at the professor and make up some bullshit.”

“Hey! I’ll have you know that my charisma saved our asses quite a few times,” he defended. “Your work almost failed us but I…” he stopped short when you whipped around to face him, glaring.

“What do you want, Marquis?”

“That’s Sheriff Marquis to you,” he said, puffing his chest out, seeming all sorts of self-important. By the chuckle that accompanied the statement, you could tell he was  _trying_  to make a joke, but besides making you roll your eyes, it just forced you to glance down at his right hip, where a gun was holstered.

You’d really missed your chance to hit him in college. As much as you wanted to smack that smirk/smile off his face, you couldn’t do it now without a whole host of trouble.

“Can I help you with something,  _Sheriff_?” you asked, adding extra emphasis to the tile as you pulled out a bottle from the bag you had. You dropped the bag, still holding the other five bottles, at your feet as you headed for the water.

“What, I can’t just say hi?”

“Knowing you? No,” you sighed, stopping right in front of the water and dipping the bottle in.

Being a creature of the sea living on land was a strange experience. You’d adapted to new food, even if you had a penchant for seafood, and you had to shower and drink saltwater exclusively. You had legs that you never remembered a time without. However, try as you may to live as a land-dweller, not returning to the ocean certainly got to you. The longer it took for you to return to the water, even for a short swim, the stronger the pull back to the ocean was. It’d drive you to madness if you ignored the call for too long. You could usually collect your water with no problem, but the last few months had been too cold to do anything else. In the water, you were always comfortable but returning to land and getting an immediate chill you couldn’t shake wasn’t your idea of something reasonable to do.

It was because of the months away from water that as soon as your hand submerged the bottle it was holding into the ocean, your mind went blank.

_The ocean. You need to be **in** the ocean._

Without any conscious thought, you were standing up and you legs were about to jump towards the deeper water when a strong arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you back from the waterline.

_No, no! Into the water!_

You struggled against the body of the person holding you, trying desperately to get back to the ocean. You thrashed against the hold, trying to break free, but it was only met with a tightening grip and fingertips digging into your hip.

“Come on,” a voice somewhere incredibly far away said, “come back to us, [Y/N].”

_They want to be in the water too! Tell them how great it is!_

You opened your mouth, and as if it was a reflex, an almost ethereal sound began to spill out. It was cut short by a large hand cramping tightly around your mouth. Try as you may to throw it off, you couldn’t. It stayed firmly over your mouth.

“Not today, doll face,” the far away voice said.

It took what seemed like an eternity for the burning your entire body was feeling to subside, for the voice telling you that you needed to be in the water to subside. Your lungs felt empty, but slowly air returned to them and it felt like heaven. You stopped struggling slowly, giving a couple weak whimpers as the realization that you weren’t getting to the water hit you.

When you properly came back to, it took you a minute to get your bearings on the situation. You had been pulled a full foot up the beach and your sense of smell, as it came back to you, was filled with a slightly spicy, kind of musky scent, mixed with a familiar smell you couldn’t place. You looked down to see an arm still around your waist, the white shirt sleeve rolled up to the elbow. You looked up to see that Aaron had you tightly against him.

Dog. That’s what that smell you couldn’t place was. Werewolves always smelled a little bit like a wet dog, though it got stronger the closer the full moon was.

You bit down on his hand, hard. He cursed loudly, letting go of your mouth and shaking his hand.

“Get off me!” you exclaimed, grabbing his forearm and trying to pull him off of you, nails digging into flesh.

“There she is,” Aaron sighed, more to himself than to you. “You sure you’re alright there? Your eyes glossed right over and you tried to sing when I pulled you away from the water.”

“I’m  _fine_ ,” you informed, but you felt a pang of guilt at hearing, once you’d lost control of yourself, you’d almost taken him with you. You worked so hard to keep that under control, but it was getting to be too long since you’d been in the ocean.

“Fine, fine,” he said, and let the arm holding you fall back to his side. You immediately took a few large steps away from him, glaring.

“How long has been since you’ve been in the water?” Aaron asked, suddenly very serious. Sheriff mode had been triggered, and you could tell by the stern look on his face and by how his arms were crossed that you two were no longer having a conversation; you were being interrogated.

“A few months,” you told him. “Really, I’m fine. I’ve only had like, one or two dreams about the ocean and I’m functioning normally. There’s no reason for you to be concerned.”

“Your eyes just glazed over, you tried to jump into the ocean with your clothes on, then tried to sing,” he pointed out. “All as soon as you touched the water. You couldn’t even hear me talking to you. How is that functioning normally?”

“You called me doll face,” you informed. 

“What?”

“You said I couldn’t hear you talking to me,” you explained, “but you called me doll face. I heard you call me that.”

Aaron looked like he wanted to laugh for a moment, but instead just sighed. “You need to go into the water, [Y/N],” he said seriously.

“I know,” you replied warily. “And I’m going to, I promise. Right now, I just need to fill my bottles and go home.”

“And what’s to stop you from zoning out as soon as your hand goes back in?” he asked pointedly. You had no response for that. You knew what was going to happen, and you knew full well you couldn’t be the one to get your own water.

“I’ll get one of my roommates to come fill my bottles, okay?” you suggested. “No need for you to worry about me, Sheriff.” He stared at you for a long moment, eyes narrowing as he the wheels in his head seemed to turn. Then, he sighed heavily, letting his arms drop to the side; a sign of defeat if ever you’d seen one.

“So, I can go about my day unbothered, then?” you asked hopefully. You watched as he toed off each of his shoes in turn, and bent down to roll his pant legs up. Before he stood up to his full height, Aaron had taken off both socks and stuffed them in his shoes.

“I’m sorry about this, doll face,” he said before scooping you up into his arms.

“What are you doing?!” you exclaimed, “Aaron, put me down right now!”

He ignored you, carrying you from where he’d pulled you earlier back down towards the water. He walked right passed your bag of bottles, as well as the one you’d dropped when he pulled you away from the water before walking straight in. He stopped barely a foot into the ocean, giving you a look.

“Put you down,” he said, “got it.” With that and a little effort, he’d tossed you straight into the ocean, and you swore loudly before hitting the water.

When you came to, it was no longer light outside. The sun had gone down, by the looks of it, at least a few hours ago. The street lights that lined where the street ended and the beach began were all turned on, save for one that had burned out a couple months ago and the city still hadn’t gotten around to changing yet. There was no sign of anyone on the beach, but you could hear the sound of the bar not far down the street’s bassline and you knew the night had, at least, officially begun.

You swam towards the shore, feeling anger bubbling inside of you as you got closer to solid ground. You remembered perfectly clearly what Aaron had done, throwing you into the ocean like a lunatic. Regardless of his gun, you decided as you walked out of the ocean and were met with that immediate chill, you were absolutely, one hundred percent going to punch Aaron Marquis the next time you saw him. He certainly deserved it.

You trudged out of the water, pulling at the clothes that stuck to your body, making a face at the wet squelching noise they made as they unstuck from your skin. You weren’t far from your bag, and you just wanted to fill your bottles and go home. As you reached your stuff, you noticed the towel sitting on top of your bag; it was white but in big blue letters on one edge, it proclaimed itself as property of the police department.

“Fucker,” you muttered, teeth chattering as you grabbed the towel, wiped your face, and tossed it around your shoulder. At least he’d left you a towel, but that made you no less angry at Aaron for dumping you in the ocean. You reached for your bag to pull it closer to the waves, only to find it heavier than it’d been when you carried it down to the beach. Raising an eyebrow, you dug into the bag and pulled out a full bottle of water…then another.

“This doesn’t make up it,” you grumbled to yourself as you shoved the bottles back where they belonged. He might have filled your bottles for you, and left you a towel, but Aaron had just tossed you into the water like you weighed nothing, your clothes still on and he was most certainly not forgiven.

As you reached the edge of the beach, you could have sworn you saw a man standing just under a light out towards Castaway’s Shack, the bar the music was certainly coming from, but you couldn’t make anyone out specifically. You watched the man standing there, looking in your direction for a minute and you just stood there, staring back while you dripped and shook. Then, he turned around and disappeared back into the bar, leaving you with a weird feeling.

The walk home, as short as it was, felt as if it was taking a million years to actually get anywhere. It could have been the chill that had your entire body shaking, or how your limbs were extra sore with all the effort you’d apparently put into swimming. By the time you stumbled onto your porch, you were almost ready to just collapse.

“There you are!” Barbara exclaimed, sounding incredibly relieved as the door swung shut behind you. “Where ha–what happened to you?!”

You stood there, exhausted, dripping water onto the living room floor before saying with venom, “our beloved sheriff through me into fucking ocean.”

“What?! Why would do that?” Lindsay, who was sitting on the couch, asked, giving you a concerned look.

“Because he followed me to the beach,” you sighed, dropping the bag of water bottles to the ground. It hit the floor with a thunk, and you just hoped he’d actually screwed the lids on properly.

“He follows you to the beach and throws you in? That makes no sense.”

“Yes it does,” came another voice as someone appeared out from behind Barbara. Jon was apparently visiting, his own bottle of salt water in hand. “You haven’t gone for a swim in a while, right?”

You made a face, shifting on your feet and sighing as your shoes squeaked. “It’s been cold,” you defended, “it’s still too cold! I’m shaking!”

“But you lost control when you touched the water,” he guessed.

“Maybe for a couple seconds,” you admired sheepishly. “But then I was fine and he threw me in anyway! While I’m wearing clothes! And have my phone in my pocket!” Your hand shot to your pocket, and it took some doing to actually get your phone out of your drenched pocket.

“Good thing I cast that imperturbable charm on it, huh?” Lindsay asked, shooting you finger guns.

“That’s not the point,” you sighed. “Like what the fuck does Aaron even think he’s doing? Doesn’t let me go when I lose control and then throws me in a minute later.”

“Once he knew you weren’t bewitched and actually at risk,” Jon pointed out as if it was the most reasonable thing in the universe. You shot him a bewildered look. Jon, of all people, knew what state you were in. He lectured you, sure, but if he were actually worried, he’d have dragged you down to the beach with him next time.

“I was  _fine_ ,” you pointed out. “Hungover, yeah. But I’ve only dreamed about the ocean twice and it would have warmed up in a couple weeks. I’d have made it. I didn’t hurt anyone. I didn’t sing.” Lie. “He had no right.”

“Well,” sighed Barbara, “at least he left you a towel?” she asked, pointing to the towel slung around your shoulders.

“That doesn’t make us even.”

There was a pause and then Lindsay cleared her threat. All three of you looked over at her.

“Well, we were going to go out,” she told you. “We can wait if you want to come?”

“No,” you told her, “I’m exhausted. I’m just going to shower again and go to bed. You guys have fun!” You bent down to grab your bottles and headed upstairs, waving as you disappeared. You dropped the bag by the door when you got into your room, and tossed your phone onto the bed. You peeled off all your clothes, dropping them all into a pile in the bathroom and turned on the shower. You weren’t sure how long you were in there. It’d taken a while, certainly, for the chill to melt away, and by then, you were too tired to climb out of the shower.

“Come on,” you muttered to yourself, turning the handle to ‘off’ and forcing yourself out of the shower. Your towel was still a little damp as you dried yourself. With no magic to deal with your hair all you had it in you to do was to brush it out, pulling out a few pieces of seaweed, and braid it messily. After digging through the laundry pile again, you dressed in pajamas and flopped onto your bed. You didn’t feel hungry; you’d probably caught some fish while you were in the water.

Sore and exhausted, you were asleep before you could even plug your phone in.


	2. ii.

You were rudely awoken the next morning by your roommate shoving you hard in the side. You groaned, swatting at her. You were definitely still sore and that did not feel good.

“[Y/N],” Barbara hissed, “you need to get up. Aaron’s downstairs.”

“Tell him to fuck off,” you grumbled, shoving your face deeper into your pillow. “I’ll punch him later. Now, I sleep.” She sighed heavily and prodded you again.

“He’s here on actual police business,” she told you. “He’s not going away and I think you need to talk to him.”

“What the fuck is he going to now?” you asked, “put me in a tank in a soundproof room? I didn’t do anything.”

“Just come downstairs,” she sighed, grabbing your blanket and tugging it off you. You whined as the cool air hit your skin, but begrudgingly rolled out of bed. You followed after your roommate towards the living room, tugging at your pajama shorts. They were far shorter than anything you wore out in public and they also had the unfortunate habit of riding up in your sleep.

When you got to the living room, you found Aaron standing against a wall by the front door, with Lindsay and Jon sitting on the couch, attempting to make polite conversation with him. He looked exhausted and momentarily, you felt a pang of guilt for him because giving up sleep to do your job sucked. Then you remembered it was  _Aaron_ , who was a dick and who had thrown you in the ocean the day before. His eyes found you as you entered the living room, arms crossed, and you saw his eyes rake over you, taking in your pajamas.

“I need you to come down to my office,” Aaron informed in that serious tone that you only heard when he was acting as sheriff.

“You mean the police station,” you corrected. “It doesn’t make it sound any better if you say your office if you’re the sheriff. Still going to the police station.”

“Fair,” he sighed, “but that doesn’t change the fact I need you to come with me.”

You cocked an eyebrow. “And why is that?”

“Because,” Aaron said, an annoyed look flashing over his face. “You were at the beach yesterday and I need to talk to you on the record. It’ll take an hour, and I’ll even drive you home afterwards.” You narrowed your eyes as you looked at him. His shirt was disheveled and the red tie he was wearing was loosened at the neck.

“Can I at least get dressed first?”

“You’re wearing clothes,” he pointed out.

“They’re pajamas!” you countered. “Look it’ll take two minutes and then you can disrupt my day,  _again_ , and I’ll answer your questions.”

“Fine,” conceded Aaron, rubbing his face with a bandaged hand. You wondered if that had been because you’d bit him, and felt another fleeting pang of pity towards him before standing up from his leaning position and taking a few steps towards where you were standing.

“What are you doing?”

“Following you,” he said shortly.

“Why?” you asked, eyes narrowing again.

“So you don’t bail the second you go upstairs,” he said matter of factly.

“You’re kidding me, right?” You shot your friends bewildered looks, and saw them return it in turn. “Do you actually think I’d do that?”

“I’m just doing my job, [Y/N],” Aaron sighed heavily. He motioned towards the stairs. “Just go get changed. I don’t have to let you do that but I am.”

“You don’t have to  _let me_?” You repeated, your temper flaring. You could hear Jon groan from the couch, but you were too focused on pulling yourself up to your fullest height (as if that was supposed to scare a stronger than you werewolf) and glaring to acknowledge him. “This is my home, Marquis.”

“I can just as easily put you in handcuffs and drag  you out,” he pointed out, pulling himself up to his fullest height as well. “Just. Go. Change.”

You opened your mouth to protest, the anger in your stomach nearing its fever pitch, but before you could utter a retort, Jon was yelling “just go get dressed. No one has time for you two arguing,” from the couch. You looked over to your friends, to see Lindsay shaking her head at you. You huffed before turning on your heel and heading up the stairs, Aaron right behind him. You headed back to your room but when you went to close your door behind you, his hand shot out to catch it. You looked at his large hand, fingers spread against the white door before looking behind you at him.

“Seriously?”

“You’ve got a window,” he pointed out, nodding towards it.

“And I’m on the second floor and afraid of heights,” you informed. “I’m not climbing out my window.” When he didn’t move his hand, you rolled your eyes and just headed for your laundry basket. He was acting like you were a fugitive or something, and you weren’t in the mood to deal with it that soon after waking up. You, in reality, never wanted to deal with Aaron, but he was behind especially annoying. You watched him warily as he entered your room, eyes sweeping over everything as he walked through, towards the window on the far end of the room. Every once in awhile, he stopped to touch something; first, it was an old medal from a school competition that you kept as a good luck charm, then a perfume bottle, a box that held most of your jewelry before he finally gravitated toward the one thing no one was ever allowed to touch: a fragile necklace made of sea glass that belonged your grandmother that you kept on a stand near the window.

“Can you  _not_ ,” you started, raising your voice so you were sure he heard you and he jumped back, whipping around to look at you, “touch that? It’s fragile and very important to me.”

“Family heirloom?” Aaron guessed.

“Yeah,” you said in a strained voice. “Please don’t touch it. I doubt you respect me enough to not go through all my shit, but you are in for a world of trouble if you touch that necklace. I mean it.”

“Loud and clear, doll face,” he said, chuckling a little. He seemed to relax a little as he spoke, becoming less of ‘I’m here for work’ and more his normal self.

“I really wish you wouldn’t call me that,” you muttered as you walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind you. It only took you a couple minutes to change, and you took your still damp hair out of the braid to run a brush through it. When you appeared from the bathroom, Aaron was over by your wall of picture, shoving his hand into his back pocket. You raised an eyebrow but said nothing and instead opened the closet door next to him to pull out a plaid scarf. You wrapped it around your neck, and jerked your head towards the door.

“Come on, then,” you sighed. “I want to go back to bed.”

The two of you headed back downstairs to find your friends were all still in the living room. All three of them fell silent as you and Aaron walked through; you shrugged at them as you passed. You’d definitely have a story to tell them when you got back, even if you weren’t totally sure what it’d be. You were overwhelmed with a new wave of annoyance as you noticed that the sun wasn’t even up yet. Aaron stopped in front of the black car pulled up to the curb outside your house, keys hanging loosely in his hand. The car beeped to signal it being open and he opened the back door and looked expectantly at you. You peered inside, face scrunching in displeasure as you saw that it was set up like a patrol car, divider and all.

“I’m not getting in the back,” you said stubbornly, looking from the inside to him. “I’m not some kind of criminal.”

Aaron sighed. “I can’t let you sit up front.”

“Says who?”

“The rules,” he told you, a hint of annoyance edging his tone.

“But aren’t you the sheriff?” you asked, crossing your arms.

“Yeah?”

“Then you can just ignore rules. Namely, the one that says I get in the back,” you pointed out. The hand holding the keys flew to his face to pinch the bridge of his nose as his eyes slid shut.

“[Y/N], please just get in the car,” he said, definitely sounding annoyed that time. “I’m a busy man and I’ve got work to do.”

“If you’ve got work to do, what are doing pulling me out of bed in the middle of the night?” you retorted.

He sighed again, letting go of the car. “You know what?” he growled before reaching out to grab your upper arm and pull you towards the car, putting one hand on your head once you were close enough. He guided you into the car as he would a handcuffed suspect, slamming the door hard once you were inside. You made a face, rubbing your arm. Aaron found his way to the driver’s seat and it wasn’t long before the two of you were off towards the police station.

“Are you ever not an asshole for like, even two seconds of your life?” you snapped from your place in the back, glaring at the back of his head. Aaron didn’t answer you or even give any acknowledgement that he’d heard you speak.

The drive to the police station was quick, but tense. You continued to sit in the back, arms folded and glare at Aaron. He, in turn, continued to ignore you completely. When he finally pulled into the parking lot, you about to doze off. According to the clock on the dashboard, it was four fifty in the morning, and you’d probably gotten home about ten, judging by when your friends usually went out. You were absolutely exhausted from the swimming, and while you weren’t quite as sore, the need for sleep was weighing you down.

“Come on,” Aaron said gruffly as he opened the door for you. “Burning moonlight here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you muttered, sliding across the back seat and climbing out of the car. Aaron led you into the precinct, and through to a door you figured would be his office. However, once you were over the threshold, you saw it was instead an interrogation room. You frowned, but before you could protest, Aaron was guiding you inside with his hand on your back.

“Take a seat,” he told you, and you sighed, giving up a wary look but doing as he asked. Aaron took the seat across from you and began to fiddle with what you assumed to be a voice recorder on the desk. He stated his name, for the record, and your name, and what case it was related to. Once that was all out of the way, he turned to look at you.

“So, [Y/N],” he started. “Can you tell me where you were yesterday?”

“When?” you asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “Before or after you followed me to the beach?”

“Just…” he trailed off, making a face, “the whole day. From the time you woke up to when you went to bed.”

“I woke up somewhere around eleven yesterday. Got up, showered, got dressed. Found out I had no water so I headed to the beach. You were there,” you said, rolling your eyes. “And after you so rudely threw me into the ocean, I have no idea.”

“You have no idea?”

“Nope, mind’s totally blank,” you informed. “Kind of an issue for sirens. The longer they’ve been out of the ocean, you know? Anyway, the next thing I remember is climbing out of the water, in my clothes,  _with my phone in my pocket_ , in the dark. I could hear the music from the bar down the street. I walked home, and I ran into my friends before they went out. I went upstairs, showered, and fell asleep. I want to say the latest I was awake was ten.”

“So, between…noon, let’s say, and right around ten, you have no memory?” asked the man sitting across from you. You nodded in response before Aaron pushed forward, “could it be possible for you to remember that time in between?”

“If there is, I haven’t the foggiest clue how,” you answered. “Do I get to know what this is all about?”

“In a minute,” Aaron said dismissively, “Did you see anyone else on the beach after you came to?”

“Nope. It was totally empty. All that was there was me, my bottles of water, and the fucking towel you left me.”

“So you don’t,” he asked, completely ignoring your comment, “remember seeing another person, at all, on the beach?”

“Not a soul,” you confirmed.

“Not,” he started, fiddling with a folder that had been sitting there when the two of you had come in, “even this man?” He shoved a picture from inside of the folder towards you. It was a man, laying in the sand….obviously dead. You made a surprised noise, shoving it back towards him.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” you asked, distress in your voice. You felt queasy at the sight.

“We found a body,” Aaron explained, “about midnight on the beach near where you were seen. Are you sure this doesn’t seem at all familiar to you?”

“Yes, I’m sure!” you snapped, “if I had seen a dead body, don’t you think I would have done something other than go home?”

“I don’t know. Would you have?”

“Yes!” you snapped, giving him an incredulous look. “Do you actually think I’d just walk away from that?”

“Want to know what I think?” asked Aaron, raising an eyebrow. “I think that your siren abilities got the better of you yesterday. You’d already almost sang once before you claim to have blacked out. I think it’s possible that maybe you sang again and this guy got lured in and drown.”

“What?!” you shouted, mind racing. You were trying to figure out if he  _actually_  thought you’d lured a man to his death, but you were also trying to take deep breaths to keep yourself calm. You’d always thought an innocent person had no reason to panic if they hadn’t done anything wrong; it made no sense to you when they did in movies, but your pulse was skyrocketing and now you understood. You felt sick. The sight of the picture on the table, knowing he was absolutely dead, made you want to vomit. You could hear your pulse in your ears.

“And we’ve had reports that you and the victim have had run ins before,” Aaron explained.

“I have never seen him before in my life,” you stated in the closest thing you could muster to a calm voice.

“Have you ever been to Castaway’s Shack?”

“Of course I have,” you said quickly. “Everyone in this city who’s ever gone to the beach has been to Castaway’s Shack. It’s pretty much the only bar on the beach.”

“So, if everyone, like you say, has been there, are you sure you’ve never seen him before?” Aaron asked, digging through the folder again and pulling out another picture. It was the same guy, but he was alive this time. You stared at the picture, trying to search your memories of why he looked strangely familiar. It finally hit you about a minute later.

“This is the guy who dumped a drink on me because I told him I wasn’t interesting in fucking him,” you said finally, making a face at the memory.

“Witnesses say you two had quite the argument leading up to that point,” he mentioned.

“And you think I killed him over it?” you guessed.

“I think,” Aaron seemed to picking his words very carefully, “that you weren’t happy about that situation. You’ve been known to have a temper.” You opened your mouth to protest, but he pressed on. “I think he was on the beach that night, and you, in your impaired state, decided to lure him in and he got pulled in by the tide.”

“I did not!” you exclaimed quickly.

“So, you remember all ten hours you were out in the ocean?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Interesting, because you said not five minutes ago you had no memory of any of it.”

“I don’t.”

“So, it’s possible you lured him in without meaning to and not remembering doing it at all,” Aaron said, “isn’t that right?”

You stammered, shaking your head as you did. “I…I mean, I guess?” you said, your voice getting higher with every word. “I would never have done it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Aaron, you know me,” you pleaded. “When have I ever done something like that, no matter how upset I am?” You almost pointed out more often than not, you were mad at him in particular and he was definitely still alive, but you knew it wasn’t going to do you any good. He might even take it as a threat. You saw a momentary flash of pain on his face, and you knew he was considering it. Try as he may to finally completely ruin your life, he had to know anyone would vouch the most you’d ever done was sing a little in someone’s ear at a party so you could talk to them long enough for other things to happen.

“Look, we don’t have enough to hold you,” Aaron explained after a good while of you two just staring at each other, you with pleading eyes and his with blank ones, in a business-like tone. “Don’t go on any sudden vacations.”

Your mouth was suddenly very dry. “Fine,” you muttered. “Can I go now?”

“You can go now,” he told you. He reached to turn the recorder off before standing up. “I promised I’d drive you home so….” he trailed off, and you gave him a look that was somewhere between incredulous and disgusted.

“Don’t fucking bother,” you spat at him. “I’ll get home myself.” You stood up, the chair making a loud squeak as you pushed it back from the table. You yanked the door to the interrogation room open and stormed off. You muttered to yourself, shaking your head. How could he possibly think you’d want to be anywhere near him after accusing you of murdering some guy? Aaron Marquis was really a piece of work and you were getting sick of his shit.

Once out onto the street, you realized you had no car and you had no cell phone. It was still too early for the buses to be running and you had no way to contact someone to come pick you up. No, the only options were to walk the five miles back to your house or take the ride from Aaron, who was hovering near the door, keys in hand.

“Like hell,” you muttered to yourself before setting off back towards your home.


	3. iii.

When you trudged back through your door at sunrise, you were surprised to see your roommates were still awake and Jon hadn’t left yet. All three of them were sitting on the couch, looking like they’d had a rough night out, and drinking steaming mugs of something that smelled too acidic to be coffee. Barbara had probably whipped up one of her instant potions to sober themselves up. When you slammed the door behind you, the three of them fell silent and you all stared at each other for a long moment.

“So…” It was Lindsay who broke the silence, “what was all that about?”

You thought you’d calmed down during the long walk home. You’d had over an hour to process what had happened, but the second Lindsay had asked, you could feel that fire on your stomach flare up again. You rubbed at your face, shaking your head and trying to take a deep breath before you answered. It proved to be of no use though. You were  _pissed_.

“So,” you started through gritted teeth, “you know how I was at the beach pretty much all day yesterday because that  _fucking ass_ threw me into the ocean?”

“Wait, don’t tell me he dragged you out at four in the morning to cite you for that,” Jon said, narrowing his eyes. “Especially since he took matters into his own hands.”

“Oh. Oh no, not that,” you said in a voice a few octaves higher than your usual one, making Jon raise his eyebrows. “He just accused me of murder instead.”

The uproar was immediate and satisfying. All three started yelling about how ridiculous that was to even think about accusing you of something like that. Anxious expressions melted into angry ones as you threw yourself into one of the arm chairs.

“Oh, get this,” you said, shaking your head. “You know how he said he’d drive me me home after we were done?”

“Please tell me he actually tried to drive you home after grilling you over a murder,” snorted Lindsay, and when you nodded, she blew air out of her mouth, shaking her head. “Fucking unbelievable.”

“Right?”

“How did he actually think you’d even want to be near him after he accuses you of murdering someone?” Barbara asked and you shrugged, rubbing your face with your hand.

“No clue,” you sighed. “He’s always been delusional. He still thinks I actually enjoyed ever working on a group project with him in college. It’s been like six years. He has to be able to look back and realize I wanted to die every time we worked together.”

“And yet,” Jon piped up, “you continued to do it.”

“Because by the time I convinced him to ask someone else, we were all that was left,” you pointed out. “It was always out of necessity and never desire.”

“You know,” Barbara said, looking over at Jon, “you could have taken one for the team and worked with Aaron instead. I’d have done it if I went to school with you guys but you guys got there about 12 years too late for that.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” snorted Jon. “He never did any fucking work.”

“How did you get home anyway?” Lindsay asked.

“I walked,” you explained, “the buses haven’t started for the day yet.”

“Wait,” she said quickly, sitting up, “you’re telling me that you walked six miles in the cold, at five in the morning, just to not deal with Aaron?”

“Yeah,” you said as if it was the most obvious decision you could have made.

“I can’t believe you’d go through a six mile spite walk of shame,” she chuckled.

“It’s [Y/N] and Aaron,” sighed Jon. “She’ll do just about anything to spite him and he’ll do anything to shove his way back into her life.”

“Oh, don’t start with this again,” you groaned.

“Start with what?” asked Lindsay, looking from you to Jon and back.

“Jon was convinced in college that Aaron had a thing for me,” you explained. “Which is bullshit and even if it wasn’t, I feel like accusing me of murder is excessive.”

Luckily, Jon dropped the subject there. The both of you were more than likely too tired to have any argument at that moment, especially one you’d had a million times before. There was a few moments of silence in which you’d let your eyes slip shut. You were starting to doze off when Jon asked the question you’d expected to get a lot earlier.

“Who’d he think you killed, anyway?”

You sighed, forcing your eyes open. “That guy at Castaway’s who dumped his beer on me because he thought it’d do the same thing fresh water does because I wouldn’t go out back and suck his dick,” you informed.

“Well, it’s not a loss,” muttered Jon. You gave a tired chuckle, letting your eyes slip shut again.

“I hope they get around to who actually killed him,” you said. “Mostly so I don’t go to prison.”

“He’ll pull his head out of his ass sooner or later,” Lindsay reassured. “There has to be evidence and shit, right?”

“Definitely,” Barbara agreed. “I wouldn’t worry about it, [Y/N].”

“I’m not worried. I’m tired.”

“Then go back to bed,” suggested Jon. “I should probably head home anyway.” You cracked an eye open to see Jon standing up, patting his pockets to ensure he had everything and stretching out. You all uttered your goodbyes, and with a great deal of effort, you managed to drag yourself out of the arm chair and back upstairs. You were asleep the second you tugged the blanket back over you.

The next week, you tried to live life as normally as you could. You, in spite of yourself, found yourself looking over your shoulder to see if anyone (read: Aaron) was following you. Your roommates had been trying very hard to keep you occupied, even if they were trying to keep it casual. You were thankful for that because while you knew you were innocent, the fact that it was even a question made you uncomfortable the more you thought about it. Luckily, your roommates had your back.

“This place is wild,” you muttered, more to yourself than to your roommates. The second you’d followed them into the apothecary they frequented, you were hit with so many scents that your brain wasn’t sure how to process all of them. It was earthy and floral and slightly fishy all at once, and every jar was an adventure. Some of them were familiar, dried flowers mostly, but a lot of them were more abstract looking. You could lose all day looking at them and asking Barbara, or the shop’s owner, Jack, what they did.

“The whole gang’s here,” Jack pointed out as the three of you walked passed the counter, both of your roommates disappearing immediately, and he smiled a bit wider as he caught sight of you. “[Y/N], to what do we owe the pleasure? You don’t usually find your way in here.”

“We need her opinion on what to do next,” Barbara informed, appearing from an aisle with a bushel of purple flowers in her arms. “What sounds better: getting happy or getting lucky?”

“With any luck, both in one go,” you answered, chuckling. “But if you’re asking me to take another instant joy potion, count me out, Barb. I lost my voice for a month the last time.”

“I promise, this one actually works!” she told you. You turned to face Jack, raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t look at me,” he chuckled. “I stopped messing around with experimental potions about sixty years ago.”

“She’s going to kill me,” you said in a stage whisper, laughing as your roommate stuck her tongue out at you and wandered off down another aisle.

“So,” Jack sighed, “this is the part where I ask you to reconsider.”

“I’m not giving you my hair, Jack,” you said flatly. “You’re a good dude, I like you, and I get that it’s a potion ingredient and all, but it’s just…weird to think someone’s going to use my  _hair_  to make a bone grow back or some shit.”

“Actually, siren hair is mostly used for the potions that make it possible to breathe underwater,” he explained. “I sell most of those potions and ingredients to lifeguards from the beach so they can save people. You could be part of that.”

“I could also…not sell my hair,” you countered, nodding knowingly. “Totally valid option.”

“Think about it,” another voice said from behind you. You turned to see Jack’s sole employee, Jeremy (who you were nearly sure was a gnome judging by his particularly thorough tinkering, but you’d never actually  _asked_ ) was walking through with bags of something foul-smelling in his hands. Jack, for the most part, tended to the store, offering advice to other magic-wielding types, and Jeremy did the dirty work of ingredient collection.

“Hair is a regenerating thing, right?” Jeremy asked. “And it’s not like we have as many sirens around as you’d think. It’s a rare stock kind of item, meaning  _you_  get paid well, and it grows back, so you can just keep selling it. It’s a cash cow.”

“It’s also weird!” you exclaimed, giving him a look. “I don’t want people using bits of me for any particular reason, thanks.”

“Suit yourself,” said Jeremy in a sing-song voice as he started heading for the store room, “but you’re missing a great opportunity here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you sighed, leaning against the counter and looking back at Jack. “What do you guys do about your werewolf bits and bobs? Do you ask our beloved sheriff for them?”

“God no,” Jack chuckled. “Aaron wouldn’t even stop to listen to the question. Besides, we can’t collect anything from his human form and no one’s actually sure how cognizant he is as a wolf. It’d be illegal to just take it then and the last thing I need is for him to haul me in.” Jack paused, raising an eyebrow. “Speaking of our sheriff, I hear you could be in the market for a lawyer and they can get pretty pricey. Remember our offer about the hair. I’ll even pay the usual rate and a half.”

“What are you talking about?” you asked, smile sliding off your face.

“The body they found down on the beach,” he explained. “Scuttlebutt is that Aaron brought you in for questioning and that you’re still a person of interest.”

“Scuttlebutt,” you repeated shortly, giving him a disinterested look as you tried to calm yourself. Your heart was pounding a thousand times a second, it seemed, and you could feel that pit of anger beginning to bubble in your stomach. It wasn’t bad enough that Aaron was bugging you and wasting your time, but now other people knew too.

“A guy another guy knows saw you storm out of the precinct,” Jack explained. “Just wondering if there was any truth to the rumor.”

“Truth to the rumor Aaron’s been harassing me?” you asked, sighing heavily. “After following me to the beach only to throw me in the water so I lost my entire day, he wakes me up and hauls me in to  _ask_  if I saw anything since he figured I was there all day.” That wasn’t the whole truth, but no one really needed, or deserved, to know about being accused of committing the murder.

“Well…” he trailed off, clearly choosing his next words carefully. “Do you think you could have had anything to do with it? Maybe…singing?”

“I didn’t lure anyone to their death, Jack,” you said flatly. “Did you have anything to do with that guy who got poisoned year before last?”

“Of course not!”

“Then it seems we’re both capable of things we don’t  _actually do_ ,” you pointed out, finality in your tone.

“Fair enough.”

Blissfully, Lindsay and Barbara reappeared, arms ladened with supplies of all sorts. Lindsay’s specialty seemed to be more with charm work than with potions, but she always seemed to bring stuff home that she mentioned needed. Today seemed to be some sort of strange branch, some snake skin, and a smooth, dark green stone.

“What are you trying to summon?” asked Jack as he rang up Lindsay, separating her stuff out to package them.

“I…am not sure yet,” Lindsay sighed. “I just have a feeling I’m going to need it soon.”

“Premonition,” he mentioned. “Useful.”

“Hardly,” your roommates chuckled, “I just know if I don’t have it, I’ll want it.” She handed him the cash she owned him, taking the bag from the counter.

“As for you…” Jack trailed off as Barbara stepped up, dropping all sorts of flowers. “I don’t want to know what you’re doing. Internet potions aren’t always the best, you know.”

“I know,” she sighed. “And half the time, it’s a novel about their grandmother before the recipe and it’s fucking obnoxious.”

“Maybe just stick to the tried and true,” he mentioned, “safer.”

“And less fun,” she countered, chuckling as she pulled out her wallet.

“Tell that to [Y/N], who didn’t have a voice for a month,” Jack laughed, nodding towards you. You smiled, waving at Barbara and laughing.

“But did she die?” Barbara asked, taking her bag from Jack. “No, she did not!”

“Not for lack of trying,” you chuckled. “But yeah, I lived.”

The three of you probably would have stayed there for a while to talk with Jack and Jeremy, but considering the panic the woman covered in purple spots showed up in, you figured it’d probably be safer to clear out. The three of you piled out onto the sidewalk, looking around at each other.

“We could go grab an early dinner?” You suggested. “I think I’m going to head to Castaway’s tonight and I should probably get some food in me.”

“We’re going out tonight?” asked Barbara, perking up a little.

“If you guys want to come, that’d be cool,” you chuckled. “But I’m not going to hide in our house or let anything chase me out of the places I usually go, you know?”

“No, that’s good,” Lindsay told you, patting your shoulder. “I don’t think I’m hungover enough for this weekend so I’m in.”

“And of course, I’m coming with you,” Barbara added, smiling. “And I’ll text Jon to see if he’s in too.”

“It’s Jon,” you snorted, leading the way towards the dinner spot you had in mind. “Of course, he’ll want to come.”

As you figured, Jon was in to go to Castaway’s; he’d texted you back almost instantly. He’d even decided to meet you guys at the restaurant and join you for dinner. Dinner was the most distracting thing that’d happened in the last week. Between the delicious food, the weird conversation Lindsay led you all into, and even the walk back pushed the whole thing from your mind.

In fact, you didn’t even think about it until you entered Castaway’s Shack and saw, sitting at the bar, Aaron Marquis. He had his back turned to the door but you knew, without a doubt, who the broad shoulders in the dress shirt belonged to. It was also a dead giveaway that he was even wearing a dress shirt in Castaway’s, arguably the most casual place in the world.

It was just plain bad luck that the only place you could get to the bar to order a round for you and your friends was next to him. You took a deep breath, noticing that your friends were already gone off in search of a table. You were going in alone. That’d end well. You sighed before walking to the open spot at the bar, trying your hardest to not even acknowledge Aaron but given the distance, it was impossible for him not to notice you.

“Look at you,” said Aaron in an amused voice, and before you could remind yourself that you were  _ignoring_ him, you’d turned to see that stupid smirk on his face again. “Putting in effort suits you.”

“Excuse me?” you asked, narrowing your eyes at him. He chuckled a little, raising his beer to his lips and taking his time to drink before he answered. In the meantime, you’d gotten the bartender’s attention and gave him your order.

“I mean, you’ve got the…siren thing going on, so it’s not like you could be ugly if you wanted to,” he told you, “you could wear a garbage bag and look better than most women I’ve seen, sweetheart.”

Your anger flared in your stomach. He couldn’t even go  _two seconds_  without a backhand compliment. You were starting to think being nice would actually kill him. He looked at you, still with that same look on his face, and you wanted to hit him more than normal.

“Is there something I can help you with, Marquis?” you asked through gritted teeth. He shook his head.

“I’m allowed to drink here as much as anyone else,” he pointed out nonchalantly.

“Yeah but why are you bugging me?”

“Just making conversation, sweetheart.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” you asked. He chuckled, giving you a one armed shrugged.

“You said to stop calling you doll face so…” he trailed off.

“Don’t call me anything,” you shot back. “Literally, just don’t acknowledge me ever again.”

“You’re being particularly feisty today,” he chuckled, “why is that?”

“Did you forget the part where you accused me of murder,  _Sheriff?_ ” you asked, glaring at him. You watched with some satisfaction as the smirk slid off his face and just for a moment, he looked uncomfortable before going for more beer.

“No,” he said finally. “But I didn’t accuse you. I asked if it was possible.”

“Yeah?” you snorted. “And what’s the verdict on that one?”

He paused before answering, “it’s possible, [Y/N].”

“No,” you snapped. “It’s not.”

Blissfully, the bartender reappeared with your drinks then. You thanked him gruffly, grabbing all four drinks with some difficulty but your desperation to get away from him meant you’d given up and grabbed them by the rims pretty quickly. You left without another word to Aaron, who you were pleased to see was looking upset and ordering another beer when you walked away. It took a few minutes to find your friends, who’d ended up in a booth in the back corner of the bar. You dropped the drinks on the table for them to sort through while you flexed your fingers.

“So, what was he on about this time?” asked Jon, nodding towards the bar.

“He was just being an asshole like he always is,” you explained, grabbing your drink and taking a long swig of it. “Can we please not talk about him? I’d rather not let him ruin my night.”

“Fair enough,” Jon sighed, tipping his drink towards you before bringing it to his lips.

It took two drinks for Barbara to convince you that you wanted to dance. You laughed as she took you by the hand and led you out to where everyone else was dancing. The two of you mixed into the crowd, falling into the rhythm quickly. You couldn’t help but laugh as you danced; you always felt ridiculous but at the moment, you couldn’t care less. It wasn’t long before there was a cute guy catching your eye, and you glanced over at Barbara, who smiled and gave you a thumbs up. He took you glancing his way again as an invitation to dance, which you were more than okay with. The song changed not long after, but the two of you took it in stride, his arm wrapping around your middle to pull you closer. You were enjoying yourself, letting your eyes slip shut as you got caught up in the music and the pace your dance partner was setting. After a while, you opened your eyes to see Barbara and you had to look around (accidentally catching the eye of an unhappy looking Aaron in the process) to see that she’d gone back to the booth with Jon, but no Lindsay.

“Do you want a drink?” the guy you were dancing with asked in your ear. You nodded in response, turning around to look at him and smile. He smiled back, leading you off the dance floor. Once closer to the bar, you spotted your other roommate, drinks in hand. You motioned that you were going to talk to her and the cute guy nodded, pointing over towards the bar.

“He is cute,” Lindsay mentioned as you reached her. “Where did you find him?”

“In the pile of sweaty bodies,” you told her, laughing. “And I didn’t even have to say a word.” You turned back towards him to see he’d slid up to the bar next to Aaron (everyone seemed to be giving him space; no one seemed wanted to be near the sheriff and you couldn’t blame them) and when he got close, his smile faltered.

“Oh no,” you mumbled, taking a few steps away from your roommate and towards the cute guy. Lindsay followed after you, clearly curious about the same thing you were.

“Hey man,” you heard the guy say to Aaron. “I’m sorry. I didn’t…know. There were a lot of people and I wasn’t sure where it was coming from.”

Aaron didn’t say anything, just stared at him while he continued to drink his beer. The guy looked from Aaron to you, taking a couple steps back from the bar. He stammered for a minute before disappearing in the direction of the door. You looked from where he’d vanished to Lindsay, who looked equally as confused.

There was that anger again and before you could stop yourself, you were shouting in Aaron’s direction: “what the  _fuck_  did you do?” It made Aaron turn around, eyebrows raised and wearing a look of complete innocence.

“I didn’t do anything, sweetheart,” he said in way too light a tone to have actually done nothing.

“So, the apology and the fact he just sprinted out of here was coincidental?” you asked skeptically.

“I guess so,” Aaron said. “If you’re upset on losing out on a drink, I can buy you one?” he offered, chuckling. You rolled your eyes, looking from him to Lindsay.

“I think I’m just going to go home,” you told her. “I don’t really want to be here so much anymore.”

“We can go somewhere else if you want?” she offered, but you shook your head.

“Nah, my mood’s kind of ruined,” you sighed. “You guys have fun.”

“How about this,” she suggested. “We’ll finish these,” she held up the drinks, “and then we’ll hang out at home? Game night or some shit?” The look on her face made it impossible to say no.

“Fine,” you sighed. “But I’m gonna bail now. Don’t chug those or I’ll thrash all of you in whatever we play.” She laughed, taking a couple steps back towards the booth.

“We’ll see about that!” Lindsay laughed before disappearing. You turned around to see Aaron was standing up and you couldn’t help but narrow your eyes at him.

“Come on, then,” he said, nodding towards the door.

“What the fuck are you on about?” you asked, exasperation in your voice.

“I’m not letting you walk home by yourself,” he explained, grabbing his beer and draining it. “Do you know what happens in this city?”

“No,” you said shortly. “For the love of god, don’t do me any fucking favors.” Before he could open his mouth again, you turned on your heel and walked straight out of Castaway’s as quickly as you could. You’d gotten down a block before you slowed down, glancing behind you to see if he’d decided to follow you anyway. Luckily, you were Aaron free. It still took the entire way home for you to calm down.

As soon as you closed your front door behind you, you decided that you weren’t done drinking for the night. If anything was going to calm you down, it was more alcohol. You made a beeline for the cabinet the house alcohol was kept in, pulling out the bottle of vodka in the front. You, at least, mixed it with something you found in the fridge before drinking a good third of the glass. You’d sat down on the couch, eyes sliding shut, when the front door opened and in came your roommates and Jon.

“I don’t know what happened,” Jon said as soon as he entered, “but Aaron downed two more beers between when you left and when we did.”

“I couldn’t care less if you paid me,” you informed sardonically, taking another swig from the cup in your hand. “So, are we actually playing games or what?”

“I don’t see why not,” Lindsay said, going for the liquor cabinet. “I’ll make drinks.”

“Vodka’s already in the kitchen!” you informed, holding your cup up. You sighed heavily, looking to your other friends. “I don’t know what I was supposed to do.”

“You’re not supposed to do anything,” Barbara told you, shrugging. “It isn’t on you.”

“It’s bullshit I can’t go anywhere without him ruining my fun,” you grumbled, taking another sip of your drink. Jon and Barbara gave each other a look when they thought you couldn’t see them. Clearly, like you, they were getting annoyed with Aaron Marquis.

“You can be here,” Jon pointed out, pulling controllers out from a basket under the tv. “You said something about thrashing us? I want to see that shit.” You laughed, holding out the hand not holding a cup.

“You’re fucking on.”


	4. iv.

The next week was quiet, blissfully. Your usual trip to the ocean for your water supply wasn’t as lonely as it usually was considering the city was getting ready for the end of summer beach bash, that for some reason  _actually_  took place the week before Halloween. You couldn’t argue it wasn’t the end of summer. It took them a week to clean the beach (which always bothered you because they were  _supposed_  to be keeping it clean all the time) and they seemed to start bright and early in the morning. You usually went around nine in the morning, if you weren’t still asleep, and you were amazed to see the beach full of volunteers. A few of them waved to you, being people you knew vaguely, and you smiled and waved back. You were just lucky that you weren’t having the same loss of control as you dipped your bottles into the water that you’d had two weeks ago because it could have been a lot worse with everyone on the beach.

That didn’t make what Aaron did remotely okay…but you had to acknowledge it made it slightly less bad.

You finally had a day to yourself; you hadn’t actually been alone since the walk back from the police station two weeks ago. There were days it was the whole group, or just your roommates, or just one person, but you’d not been alone since then and as much as you appreciate the fact they cared, it was getting to be too much. You had to be alone for more than four seconds. You’d decided to spend most of your day outside of the house; you wandered shops, picked up something to wear to the summer beach bash, and a few new odds and ends. You had lunch in your favorite cafe and didn’t worry about how long you took to eat your lunch for once in your life. There had been a moment on your walk to the arcade down from Castaway’s where you’d almost walked into a familiar (but you couldn’t figure out  _how_ ) guy who was glaring at you like you’d just murdered his family, but he didn’t follow after you and the pinball machine drove it right from your mind.

Around dinner time, Lindsay texted you for the first time to ask if you were down for a dinner plan. You’d been talking about getting everyone together to make something for one big dinner because everyone in your friend group asserted they could cook but never did so for anyone other than themselves. There had been talk of doing it at some point that week, and tonight seemed to be the night. You texted her to let her know you’d be down and what you’d be cooking.

You stopped at the grocery store on your way home to buy what you needed to make your portion of dinner, and you’d run into Jon, who was doing the same. You went to greet him, stopping short as you thought you saw the glaring man from earlier glaring at you from the soup aisle.

“What are you staring at?” asked Jon, whipping around to face in the same direction. He squinted at a spot in the other direction of where you were actually looking.

“Nothing,” you mumbled, not seeing the man anymore and instead turning back to Jon. “So, what are you making?”

“I’m probably going to make some meatballs?” Jon offered, looking down into his basket.

“Probably?” you repeated, laughing as you glanced to see what Jon had picked up. You saw some herbs and garlic and a few pounds of ground chicken. “Who…makes meatballs with chicken?”

“People who care about their heart,” he told you before laughing and shaking his head. “I don’t know. I wanted to bring something different to the table.”

“That’s totally cool,” you told him, smiling. “I think I’m going for soup,” you explained, holding out your own basket. “I figured it might be smart to not have four entrees.”

“That’s…shit, yeah that’s good,” he agreed, nodding. The both of you headed for the checkout, speculating what the other two were planning to do. Both had been particularly secretive when you mentioned it that morning; you had to admit, you were a little worried. Once the two of you had paid for your stuff, Jon stopped outside the front door of the store.

“So, are you heading over with me?” he asked.

“I actually have one more place to stop,” you sighed. “Mostly because I just realized I forgot.” You’d meant to stop at a store not far for a present for his birthday. Seeing Jon in that moment reminded you and you were thankful you had remembered before his actual birthday. You had the habit of finding things insanely early and then forgetting about them entirely until after someone’s birthday.

“Here, give me your shit,” he said, holding his hand out. “I’ll bring it back to the house and throw it in the fridge.”

“Thanks dude,” you said, smiling at him and handing off the bag. “I promise I’ll be home soon.”

Once you split ways, you busied yourself with going through your camera roll to find exactly what it is you had seen and liked for your friend. You always took pictures of things to buy later so you knew what it was. It saved you an insane amount of aggravation. When you looked up, hearing that you were nearing a corner based on the fact it sounded like cars ahead of you, your heart sank. Aaron was on the other side of the street, and looking right at you.

“Oh, fuck,” you groaned, deciding instead to take a shortcut down an alleyway to get to the next corner and out of sight, and hopefully out of mind.

You dipped down the nearest alleyway, whipping around the corner of the brick building and nearly crashing headfirst into a grimy dumpster. You sidestepped it awkwardly, looking anything but graceful as you nearly threw yourself off-balance and topped over, and continued your speed walk down the dark corridor. You were just turning another corner down another alleyway that you knew would let out near the road that led home when he caught up to you. You hadn’t seen him coming, but when you sped around the corner, you found yourself stopping short to avoid colliding with his outstretched arm as he leaned against the wall.

“Fuck,” you swore under your breath, stumbling back against the building in an effort to balance yourself. It played directly into his hand and before you knew it, his other arm was on the other side of you, palm also splayed out against the brick, boxing you in place. With nowhere to go, you looked up at his face as it loomed closer, wanting to punch that smirk right off his face.

“Now, now,” he started, his voice dripping with the satisfaction of getting you where he wanted. “Where do you think you’re going, sweetheart?”

“What do you want, Marquis?” you asked angrily.

“We need to talk,” he informed.

“Not until you back up,” you told him, looking at his arms that were trapping you where you were. You got another whiff of the spicy musk paired with dog that you smelled a few weeks ago on the beach. “You’ve already chased me down two alleys. You’ve got my attention.”

“Fine, fine,” he sighed, pushing himself off the wall you were against, and taking a step back. You sighed with relief that your personal space was no longer being invaded.

“About what now?” you snapped. “Who did I kill this time?”

“Nothing besides my hopes and dreams, sweetheart,” he informed, chuckling a little.

“Exactly what I live for,” you sighed.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he told you nonchalantly, and that made you stop. You slowly turned on your heel to look at him to see his arms crossed as he studied you.

“Why the fuck…” you trailed off, unsure if you should ask why he was thinking about you or why it was he was telling you.

“Because,” he started, “correct me if I’m wrong, but a side effect of a siren’s call is that the thrall thinks about the siren.”

You rolled your eyes, turning away from him. “Aaron, you need to get over it, okay? Lots of people in this city are sirens. I fail to see why you’re so focused on me.”

“Because a lot of people think about you, it seems,” he explained. “At least they do at Castaway’s and I can’t help but wonder…”

“Wonder what?” you asked, glancing over your shoulder at him.

“How do I know you’re not doing…your siren thing?” asked Aaron, giving you a skeptical look.

“Oh come  _on_ ,” you just about snarled, turning on your heel to face the werewolf fully. “I never use my abilities on anyone. Just because I  _have_  the ability doesn’t make me a predator. Or a murderer!”

“Historically,” he started, crossing his arms and nodding, “your powers make you both.” You could feel that fire of anger that clouded your brain flare up and you desperately wanted to scream or punch him or  _something_.

“Historically, I punch assholes in the face,” you growled, nostrils flaring as you glared at him. “And I want you to know the only reason I’m not hitting you is the gun. The second you don’t have it, I will.” To your displeasure, he looked amused as he stared back into your angry face.

“If you say so, sweetheart,” he crooned. “But you see how I wonder about these things.”

“Yeah, because you don’t do your fucking job,” you snapped, rolling your eyes. His amusement was replaced by a look of confusion, eyebrows knitting together.

“Yeah?” Aaron asked, trying to seem as nonchalant as possible but that flash of worry in his eyes gave you the satisfaction of knowing you’d gotten under his skin, if for only a moment. “How do you figure?”

“Because if you bothered to talk to  _anyone_  who knows me, they could have told you as much,” you pointed out. “The only siren-like thing about me is the fact I can’t touch fresh water.”

“Well, that and the fact you get drunk and use your call to get attractive people at parties to give you attention,” he countered; that was a punch to the gut. “I’ll give you that you at least give them the ability to decide for themselves what they want to do about things. I’d have arrested you a long time ago if you didn’t.”

“You’re  _watching_  me?” you asked, a look of disgust on your face as you looked up at him, your plans long since forgotten.

“It’s my job,” he sighed, “like it or not, you’re a potentially dangerous situation. I’m a cop. I’d not be doing my job if I let you run around unchecked.” At the look on your face, he sighed again. “You’re not the only one, if that makes you feel better.”

“It really doesn’t,” you told him, tears stinging your eyes as you looked quickly away from him, hoping he wouldn’t see how close you were to crying. You had plenty of  _helpful_ abilities; you could calm someone down if they needed it, and you could survive underwater and swim like you had been born into the water, even as a hybrid born on dry land, which proved incredibly useful when someone was drowning. Still, the call was the only thing anyone seemed to think of. “But if you’re keeping tabs on me, you should have known I wasn’t involved. I haven’t been near the beach in two weeks, except for five minutes to collect water, in front of a dozen witnesses.”

“I don’t  _tail_  you,” he told you, “I do have better things to be doing.”

“Then go do that and leave me alone, Aaron,” you snapped, rubbing at your eyes as the tears that threatened to spill over did. “I‘m just going home.”

With that, you sidestepped the werewolf in front of you as quickly as you could and took off towards your house, desperate to get away from him already. You were glad to find that your front door was open as you flung yourself at it, and when you fell into the living room, you were greeted by the sight of Jon and Lindsay sitting on the couch, controllers in hand, playing a video game you couldn’t make out through blurred vision.

“What happened?” Jon asked, the most serious look on his face you’d ever seen. Your bitter chuckle was watery as you shook your head.

“We’re not monsters,” you stated, rubbing at your eyes, trying to dry them.

“Not really,” Jon agreed.

“And yet, our lovely sheriff is watching us,” you told him, making a face. “He seems to think otherwise.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he keeps tabs on all of our kind,” you explained, “though he informs me we’re not the only ones. As if that’s  _actually_  supposed to make me feel better.”

“You know,” Lindsay piped up, “Mariel works for the police department. Aaron’s been reading a lot about what a siren’s call is like when you experience it since before these murders even started happening. I don’t think he’s researching the case. I feel like it’s more about if he’s actually attracted to you or if you’re trying to use your call to throw him off.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you scoffed.

“You said it yourself,” she pointed out, “he keeps calling you sweetheart.”

“That means literally nothing.”

“Add to the fact he’s trying so hard when he’s investigating you,” Jon added.

“Because he thinks I’m a murderer!”

“Or really, he’s trying to find a reason to exonerate you,” Lindsay suggested. “Why do you think he’s leaving no stone unturned? We all know he doesn’t try this hard for anything.”

“Because he’s got some weird fucking vendetta,” you guessed, shrugging. “Jon’s a siren too! And he doesn’t live far from the beach. Fuck, all the sirens live around here, why is he so fixated on me?”

“Because he’s always been,” Jon snorted. “You can’t tell me you never noticed…” he trailed off, eyebrows climbing up his face as he saw the look you were giving him. “[Y/N], he was so into you in college.”

You snorted derisively, “you’ve got to be kidding me. Are you  _seriously_  going on about this again?”

“He was!” Jon protested, “you were always the first person he went to when there was a group project and he’d always find his way to you when we were at the same party.”

“And he’s been a complete ass every time I’ve ever spoken to him,” you pointed out. “He never did any of the work he was supposed to and nothing out of his mouth isn’t smug or sarcastic. Every party, there was another backhand compliment about how I looked and he made fun of basically like everything I told him I was interested.”

“So, he’s lazy and into negging,” Lindsay pointed out. “Or maybe he doesn’t know how to talk to women.” She paused before adding, “actually, I’ve seen him out at bars. He  _definitely_ doesn’t know how to talk to women.”

“He looked at me like I was the devil when he found out what I am,” you told your friends. “When I was out of water, and one of the girls in our seminar offered me one of her extra bottles, I had to ask if it was salt water and he butt his way into the conversation and wanted to know why…and I made the mistake of telling him. Aaron’s pretty much avoided me since.”

“That…” Jon trailed off, making a face. “Yeah, that one I can’t explain. Maybe he thought the reason he was into you was because you wanted him to be? Maybe that you were using your powers on him?”

You snorted and gave a derisive laugh. “You know just as well as I do he thinks I’m a monster,” you informed. “Like he’s anyone to judge on who is and who isn’t dangerous. Werewolves aren’t know for being cute and cuddly.”

“[Y/N],” Lindsay sighed.

“No! If he’s going to assume I’m some sort of murderer because I have the ability, it’s more than reasonable I do the same,” you said, “especially since he’s far more likely to have done something than I’ll ever be.”

“But isn’t the whole reason you’re upset because he’s just making assumptions?” she asked. “How does this make you any better?”

“It doesn’t make me any better,” you sighed. “But it makes me feel better and until you’re the one getting accused of killing a man, I don’t think you get to judge me.”

The both of them sat on the couch, looking up at you with displeased looks on their faces; it was definitely the end of the conversation when Barbara appeared from the kitchen, flour on her cheek. Her smile faltered as the vibe in the room washed over her and she looked from the couch to where you were standing.

“What’s going on in here?” she asked cautiously.

“Don’t worry about it,” you sighed. “Can I get in the kitchen?”

“Do you need the oven?” she asked, nodding back towards the inside of the kitchen. When you shook your head, she smiled. “Yeah, you’re good then.”

“Cool, I’m gonna go do that,” you informed, nodding a couple times before stepping around your roommate to head into the kitchen. Considering how Barbara had flour all over her, you were surprised to see how clean the kitchen was. Then it hit you because she had  _magic_  and didn’t have to clean by hand. You were excited to see the pans were clean, and you didn’t have to dig out the pot you needed because it was sitting on the stove, waiting for you. You went to the refrigerator to pull out what you needed to see Jon had just left your bags on a shelf with everything still in plastic.

“Yeah, alright,” you muttered to yourself, pulling both bags out. You made quick work of pulling everything out and separating it all out into piles. You grabbed what you needed from cabinets, turning on the stove and pulling oil from a side cabinet to pour some into the pan to heat up. You busied yourself with cutting up vegetables and putting them in the pan. Cooking, like everything else you’d done today, did a pretty good job of distracting you from things that upset you. It took some very violent chopping to get the idea that anyone could think Aaron Marquis could possibly be into you out of your head, but it did its job sooner or later.

By the time it actually got to dinner time, it was out of your mind entirely. You weren’t thinking of the fact you’d been accused of doing something you certainly didn’t do, forcing someone you didn’t particularly care for further into your life. All you think about was how good Jon’s chicken meatballs, as strange a concept as they were, smelled, how you were proud of how the soup turned out, and how you were surprised to see Barbara had made a pizza and Lindsay some sort of cake for dessert.

“I’m going to be honest,” Lindsay said as she took her place at the table. “I’m pleasantly surprised.”

“Me too,” you chuckled, “I was worried we were going to end up with four main courses.”

The four of you ate, and for a while, the conversation was all compliments. For some reason, no one thought the others, despite the fact that you and Jon were the youngest (and already nearing a hundred), could actually manage to cook. It was a lot of jokes about poisoning but everyone seemed pretty pleased with their food in the end. It was only after the cake was cut did the conversation go anywhere else.

“So,” Lindsay said conversationally as she leaned back in her seat. “What do you think happened to that guy?”

“What guy?” asked Barbara before putting a forkful of cake into her mouth.

“The guy [Y/N] was supposed to have killed,” she explained. “What do you think actually happened to him?”

A heavy silence fell over the table as all four people at the table took to eating their cake and not answering the question. Linsday, for a fleeting moment, looked to have regretting asking the question, but when Jon answered, she looked relieved.

“Someone had to have drowned him, right?” he asked. “Maybe it was an ex or some shit like that.”

“I think,” you started cautiously, keeping your eyes on your food, “I think he just stumbled from Castaway’s onto the beach and drown. Total accident.”

“Wouldn’t the tide have swept him out to sea, though?” Jon asked, “someone had to have drown him and pulled him back onto shore.”

“Then it definitely couldn’t have been me,” you sighed. “There’s no damn way I could have pulled him back onto land. Aaron’s barking up the wrong tree.”

“That’s fair enough,” Lindsay said, “I think he’ll figure that out sooner or later.”

“Sooner would be preferred,” you answered. “I don’t understand how they could have made him sheriff.”

“He’s usually got things figured out pretty quick,” Lindsay pointed out, shrugging. “I’ve seen a drop in sensational news reports since he became sheriff.”

“Probably because he had all the reporters rounded up or some shit,” you grumbled, taking a particularly hard stab at the cake on your plate.

“Or maybe there’s just less crime?” Jon suggested hopefully.

“You know,” you said, looking up from your cake. “He tried to walk me home from the bar. You know, after telling me he’s investigating me?” You shook your head, “and you know what he said too sway me? He asked if I knew what happened in the city. So, I really doubt he’s got crime on lockdown.”

“He was worried about you,” Jon pointed out. “Especially since he’s right, some shitty things happen in the city.”

“Why are you always on about me and him?”

“Honestly, I wonder about that too,” Barbara piped up. “He does seem not…great. And in any case, [Y/N] really seems not to like him.”

“Even if you wanted to convince [Y/N] to give him a chance,” Lindsay interjected, “he really doesn’t anymore. Threw that out the window when he arrested her.”

Jon sighed and then nodded. “You’re right,” he conceded. “I just think they had potential. He’s not always such a dick.”

“I refuse to believe that,” you scoffed.

“Look, he lived my dorm when I lived on campus,” Jon explained. “He helped me out a lot. Especially when I was drunk. He asked about you a lot.”

“Yeah, right!”

“Seriously!” exclaimed Jon, sitting up in his chair.

Before he could say anything, a knock at the door made all of you jump. You glanced over to it before back to the table. Everyone looked surprised enough to tell you that neither of your roommates had invited anyone else over. You sighed, sliding your plate onto the table and got out of your chair. You headed for the front door, shrugging. As soon as you opened the door and saw who was on the other side, you groaned and went to slam the door. Aaron’s hand shot out to keep you from closing it, and pushed it open.

“[Y/N], you need to come with me,” he informed, and by the serious tone, you could tell it was official business.

“I really don’t,” you shot back.

“This isn't…” he started, but stopped to instead sigh at the look on your face. He reached to his belt, going for his handcuffs. “You’re coming with me one way or another but I’m giving you the chance to come on your own. I suggest you take it, [Y/N],  _please_.” The last word seemed to particularly pain him.

“What…” you trailed off, eying the handcuffs in his hand, tangling by his side. “Not until you tell me  _why_.”

Aaron sighed, “There’s another body.”

“I’ve been here all night!” you exclaimed quickly, turning back to your friends for some support.

“[Y/N],” he said, “just…please get into the car.”

“You’ll have to make me.”

“I will,” he told you, standing up a little straighter. “Don’t make me drag you out of here. It’s really not something I want to do.”

“[Y/N],” Lindsay said from behind you. “I think you should just go. You know full well that you’ll be home sooner than you know it.”

“I’m getting a little sick of my time getting wasted because the police department have no idea how to do their fucking jobs,” you snapped. Aaron sighed again, taking a step towards you and you took a step back.

“We need to go,” he informed. “It already took me longer to find you than I thought.”

“It was hard for you to find me,” you started, “in the place where I live? And have been for hours?” He rolled his eyes, and you saw the handcuff open and you sighed. There was really no way out it.

“Fine, I’m coming,” you muttered, reaching for your coat on the rack next to the door. His eyes followed your movements as if you were actually going to find something to attack him with, and when you slid your arm into a coat, he seemed to deflate slightly. You rolled your eyes at your friends before stepping outside, letting Aaron lead you to the car where he’d left it.

“What a waste of everyone’s time,” you muttered as you slid into the backseat, crossing your arms. Aaron said nothing as he got into the driver’s seat and turned the car on.

You could have sworn you heard a sigh of relief as he pulled away from the curb.


	5. v.

Aaron had left you in the same interrogation room you’d been brought to last time for over two hours. You were so angry, having to just be there, only knowing the time because of the clock on the wall above the two-way mirror. Aaron had taken your phone when you got to the station, and you’d told him, in no uncertain terms, what you’d do to him if he dared to go through it. He sighed, sealing the evidence bag in front and showing you the number on the seal. He explained he had no intention of going through it, at least not at the moment, but he was taking it to keep you from using it to contact anyone while you were in interrogation. That’s when it hit you that you were actually in trouble.

Knowing you’re innocent, you found out, was a lot less comfortable when everyone else thought they knew you were guilty.

When Aaron finally appeared in the doorway, file in hand and looking particularly haggard, you sat up straight. Your arms crossed over your chest almost automatically while he took his time to sit down, and to set up the recorder.

“Don’t you have cameras or some shit?” you asked before you could stop yourself. Aaron looked up at you almost curiously, and you added quickly: “it seems old fashioned, that’s all. The voice recorder.”

“It is,” he sighed, turning back to what he was doing. “And to answer your question, yes. There’s cameras. I like a layer of redundancy when I investigate.” You watched him set the voice recorder to record before listing off all the numbers involved with the case, names and dates before finally turning to you.

“Second time you’re here,” he stated almost conversationally.

“Because you’re still deranged,” you snapped before you could help it. It drove you insane how casual he seemed to be about accusing you about things you knew full well you’d never be capable.

“[Y/N],” he said, still cool as ever, “would you say that you’ve got a temper?”

“What?” Your eyebrows knitted together, sitting up a little bit straighter as you tried to figure out his angle.

“I asked if you thought you had a temper,” Aaron repeated. “I trust you know what that means.”

“Of course I do! I just…don’t see why you’re asking me that?”

“Just humor me,” he suggested, shrugging. “Do you think you have a temper?”

“Everyone has a temper,” you pointed out. “If you’re asking me if I have bad temper, I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so,” he repeated. “Even though there’s plenty of situations, on record, that say otherwise. I, personally, can vouch for a dozen times, in the last week alone, that you do in fact have a bad temper.”

“That’s not a bad temper,” you shot back before you could stop yourself, “that’s being sick of you and your shit.”

“But looking at any of those interactions,” he pressed on. “I think we can establish you have a temper.” He reached into the folder he brought in with him, and you did the best to prepare yourself for whatever it was he was about to show you. He slid a picture on the table towards you.

You knew that looking at it likely would not end well, and you’d only gotten a split second’s glance at what was in front of you and you knew you’d made a mistake in looking at. You’d really only taken in the bottom half of the body and a whole lot of blood before you could feel your stomach attempting to expel all you’d eaten today. With a good deal of effort, you managed to keep yourself from vomiting but you had to turn your entire body in your chair to do so.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you asked, shoving the picture back towards him and heaving at the thought of what it was.

“Can’t face what you did?” Aaron asked, “I get it. You do something in heat of the moment, in self-defense and it…” he continued but you cut him off.

“How could I have even managed that?”

Aaron rummaged through his folder again until he found another picture. He held it out and you glanced warily over to see a picture of a large, particularly heavy looking rock, covered in more blood, making your stomach churn again. “This wasn’t found far,” he explained.

“In what world would I be able to lift that?” you asked, looking up at him, an incredulous expression all over your face. “I’m a siren, Aaron. We weren’t gifted with above average strength, and I’m not big enough a person for that to even be feasible!”

“But, realistically,” he sighed, “you’d be able to push it. Perhaps off a cliff.” Your eyes got wide and then narrowed.

“You think I was on the beach today,” you said.

“Did I say that?” he asked nonchalantly, “no one said anything about the beach.”

“You said off a cliff. The only place where there’s a cliff is on the beach,” you pointed out. “And I wasn’t anywhere near the cliffs. I went to the water to fill my bottles and the volunteers for the beach bash saw me and then I wasn’t on the beach again.”

“I…” Aaron started, but the knock at the door, followed by it swinging open made him stop. He glanced over to see who it was. From your chair, paired with how the door wasn’t open all the way, you couldn’t see who it was, but you could hear a female voice whispering to him. Aaron groaned and stood up, sweeping the pictures back into the folder and taking it with him.

“Just stay here,” he grumbled, headed for the door.

“Like I can go anywhere else!” you shot back as the door closed behind him. “Fuck,” you muttered, leaning back in your seat. You began to tap your fingernails against the table with nothing better to do.

Another hour passed. Then, two more after that and you were starting to shift uncomfortably in your chair. The longer you sat there, the more you had to pee. You’d been in there for five hours, and it was starting to get to you. You were sure it was some sort of mind game he was playing for you. It was a movie cop thing to do and you were surprised that it was actually a thing that happened. You also wouldn’t put it past Aaron doing something douchey like it. You sat there for a few minutes more before you cautiously got up, heading for the door. You reached out and knocked as loudly as you could.

“Hey!” you shouted. “I get it, you’re trying to sweat me out, but you have to let me pee!”

It took you a few more minutes of shouting and knocking before you got someone’s attention. The door swung open and you had to take a huge step back to avoid getting hit in the face. You’d expected to see Aaron, looking annoyed as ever, on the other side but instead, it was Mariel. You only knew her vaguely as she was an old friend of Barbara and you’d hang out together once in awhile. She looked at you, eyebrows furrowed.

“Why are you screaming?” she asked you as if it was something ridiculous.

“Because I’ve been sitting in here for five hours and I need to pee,” you informed. “Can I  _please_  go to the bathroom?”

“Of course you can,” she told you, “I have to follow you into the bathroom but there’s stalls and shit.”

“God, Mariel, at this point, I’d stare you down while I peed.”

“Yeah….you don’t have to do that,” she told you, nodding towards the hallway. You followed her down the hall and into a bathroom, and you ducked into the first stall you saw. When you reappeared from the stall not long after, Mariel was still standing there, looking at you. You washed your hands quickly, and it was only when you turned off the sink did she say anything to you.

“He doesn’t think you did it, you know,” Mariel informed in a casual tone.

“What?” you asked stupidly, drying your hands on a paper towel.

“He doesn’t actually think you killed either of those men,” she explained, “but there were a couple tips he had to follow and…” she trailed off as you stared at her.

“If he doesn’t think I did it, why am I here?” you asked a little more harshly than you’d meant to.

“Because he has to,” she said simply. “But I figured you’d be comforted to know that he, the person, not the sheriff, didn’t think you did it.”

“Why would that comfort me?”

“Because…I thought…” Mariel trailed off, giving you a concerned look and sniffing. “You…scent…never mind,” she added quickly, seeing the look on your face. “Now come on, he’ll be pissed if he comes back from the coroner’s office and you’re not in there.’

“He’s not even in the building?” you groaned as you followed her back towards the interrogation room. “He left me in there and he’s not even in the building?”

“He could have thrown you in a cell,” she pointed out, stopping in front of the door and swinging it open. “He’ll be back soon, I promise.”

Soon, it turned out, to be another two hours. You were actually starting to doze off in that uncomfortable metal chair when the door swung open and Aaron walked back in. He had a look on his face that you couldn’t quite place, but when he sat down, he took a moment to rub his face with both of his hands. When he reappeared, it was back to business as usual.

“How was the coroner’s office?” you asked nonchalantly.

“It was…” Aaron started, but his face contorted in confusion and he paused. “How did you know I was at the coroner’s?”

“Mariel told me when she let me go to the bathroom…” you trailed off to give the clock above Aaron a scrutinizing look. “Two and a half hours ago. You left me here almost five and a half hours. Thanks, by the way, for that.”

“Sorry, I don’t exactly remember there being a time limit on how long it could take me to do my job before it didn’t work for you,” he snapped, quickly adding, “sweetheart.”

You raised an eyebrow at him. There were very few times that Aaron sounded legitimately upset with you; he was more of an amused to be teasing kind of guy, even at his worst. You could tell him calling you sweetheart was an afterthought, and you guess it was to soften the interjection.

“The last time I checked, you’re eight and half hours into the twenty four hours you have to charge me,” you said coolly. “So there is a time limit. Personally, we’re already over my time limit so I guess I’m just waiting on that. Or for you to come to your senses and realize that I. Didn’t. Do. It.”

“You know, you keep saying that, but the evidence doesn’t point to anyone else,” he informed.

“You can ask my roommates,” you sighed, trying your best to ignore the anger bubbling in your stomach, “I was with them for hours.”

“But you weren’t with them all day,” he guessed.

“No,” you confirmed. “I went to the beach to get more water this morning, and after that I went to lunch and did some shopping. Spent an hour at the arcade because why not, I’m an adult and can do what I’d like. Then, I went to the grocery store, met Jon, and he took my stuff home while I went to get his birthday present. Except I never got there because you chased me down a fucking alley. I went home and now, I’m here.”

“See, my problem here is that you say you went places,” he said, “but you also went there  _alone_. You can say you went anywhere, but now I have to go through the trouble of tracking people down to verify that. And it’s…” he trailed off, looking at his watch, “almost four in the morning, so I’m going to have to wait for stores to open. That means  _you’re_  going to stay here until that happens.”

“Or,” you sighed, standing up to reach into your back pocket. You had a terrible habit of shoving receipts into your back pocket but for once, it was going to do you some good. You slammed a ball of crumpled papers, as well as four arcade machine tickets you’d kept because you couldn’t do anything with them, onto the table in front of him. “You can read the fucking timestamps to see I’m not lying.”

“You have an excellent organizational system,” he commented, pulling them closer to him and beginning to separate them out.

“Bite me, Sheriff.”

Aaron chuckled darkly, looking up from his hands to give you that same amused smirk you got from him when she wasn’t accusing you of murder. “A tempting offer, sweetheart, but I’ll pass,” he told you, “you already smell like the ocean. I doubt you’ll want to add wolf into the mix. Smell like a wet dog all the time.” He turned back to the crumpled bits of paper in his hand, laying them all out. You watched as he rearranged them on the table, and you assumed it was to form a timeline.

“I’ll have to get…” he started, but there was a knock on the door and it swung open, Mariel in the doorway. “I’m in the middle of something,” he pointed out, nodding back towards you.

“We found another body,” Mariel informed. “On the beach. We’ve had patrols out all night like you asked and they found one right across the street from Castway’s Shack about twenty minutes ago that wasn’t there the last time they went passed.”

“See!” you exclaimed, “I’m not the one killing them! I’ve been here almost nine hours. I couldn’t have killed this guy just like I couldn’t have killed the others.”

“You relax,” Aaron said, turning back to you. “Let them know I’ll be there in ten,” he shot over his shoulder to Mariel, who disappeared, “and as for you…you’re here a while longer. But I’ll throw you into a holding cell instead of letting you sit here.”

“And that’s better?” you asked, standing up as he motioned you to. He shoved your receipts into the file and nodded for you to follow him.

“I’m sticking you in the one upstairs,” he told you, “downstairs is worse than an interrogation room. Up here, you can see everything that’s going on and you can even talk to Mariel.”

“Oh, joy,” you said sarcastically as you walked into the cell in a corner of the squad room, watching him swing the door closed and lock it.

“I thought you’d be happy,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “You might just be innocent after all.”

You opened your mouth to retort, but Aaron walked over to his desk, grabbed his car keys and promptly disappeared. He reappeared a minute later to ask Mariel to take your receipts down to the lab for Gavin to look at before disappearing again. You huffed loudly, taking a seat on the bench that was bolted into the wall. From the window near Mariel’s desk, you could see the sun starting to rise and you couldn’t hold back the yawn that escaped you.

“You should get some sleep,” Mariel mentioned, glancing over at you. “I can throw you a blanket and a pillow. Neither are particularly great, but hey, better than nothing, am I right?”

“Yeah, why not,” you sighed. “I guess it can’t hurt.” She rummaged around a cabinet near her desk for a minute before pulling a pillow wrapped in plastic out, followed by a gray blanket. She pulled the plastic off the pillow before holding both out to you through the bars of the cell. You took them from her, muttering a quiet thank you as you did. You made yourself as comfortable as you could manage on the bench, wrapping yourself up in the blanket.

“I’ll be back,” she informed, heading for the file Aaron had left on his desk. “I just have to go downstairs.”

“Have fun,” you yawned, letting your eyes shut. You felt the weight of everything pulling on you, making you ache. You wanted nothing more than to sleep it off like you would the flu.

You were asleep almost instantly.

The next thing you knew, you were being shaken and the newly familiar spicy musk, mixed with dog, smell of Aaron was almost overpowering. You groaned to signal you were awake, hoping he’d stop shaking you. He did, thankfully, but his hand stayed on your side.

“Come on, sleeping beauty,” Aaron crooned. “Time for you to go home.”

“What?” you muttered groggily, opening one bleary eye to see the outline of Aaron in front of you.

“You’ve been asleep,” he told you, “long enough for the medical examiner to find enough evidence to connect all the bodies and you were here. Plus, Gavin tested the receipts to make sure you weren’t just making shit up. Turns out you were not.” You could have sworn the end of that sentence was punctuated by a sigh of relief.

“No fucking shit,” you grumbled, letting your eye slip closed.

“Come on,” he chuckled, squeezing your side gently. He reached out to poke a spot under your nose, and the light touch tickled more than anything else. You made a displeased noise as you scrunched up your nose, and he laughed. “Wouldn’t you rather sleep in your own bed?”

“Yeah,” you sighed, forcing your eyes open and wincing at how bright it was. He chuckled, standing up and letting his hand fall back to his side.

“I’ll drive you home,” Aaron informed, “I have to head out that way anyway.” You shoved the blanket wrapped around you to the side, and with some effort, sat up and rubbed your face.

“What time is it anyway?” you asked, looking up at him. He considered his watch for a moment before answering.

“Quarter after eight,” he told you, stepping aside to let you walk out of the cell.

“AM or PM?” You looked around for a window, but there didn’t seem to be any where you were. You couldn’t see to the outside to figure it out for yourself.

“PM,” he answered, “you’ve been asleep, what, sixteen hours?”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” he laughed, heading for his desk. “I wasn’t here for most of it.” He reached in a desk drawer and appeared with your cell phone, still in the sealed bag. He held it out to you, and you took it, opening the bag and grabbing your phone.

“You worked the entire time?” you asked as you followed him towards the front door. “Or did you go home and sleep?”

“I took a nap while I was waiting for the medical examiner’s report,” he explained, unlocking his car as you approached it. He opened the passenger’s door, nodding towards it as if to tell you to get in.

“I’m allowed in the front now?” you asked him, sliding into the seat.

“Not a suspect anymore,” he pointed out, closing the door once you were inside. He made his way to the driver’s seat and wasted no time getting out onto the main road.

It was the first time you’d gotten a good look at Aaron in a while. The circles under his eyes were more pronounced than ever; he looked exhausted. You could see he had attempted to shave, and nicked himself around the chin, but judging by how the hair was growing in, it’d been a couple days.

“I know I look good, sweetheart, but staring is impolite,” Aaron teased, glancing over at you with that smirk on his face.

“When was the last time you actually got more than an hour of sleep?” you asked before you could stop yourself. Aaron rolled the car up to the stop sign in front of you on the road, letting the car stop entirely before he looked over at you, confusion written on his face.

“Probably a week or two,” he admitted. “I can go a lot longer than others without sleep and I’ve had work to do.” He focused on the road again as he turned down the road you lived on.

“Well, you look like shit.” The comment made him laugh, and you watched his tired eyes crinkle up at the sides.

“Thanks,” he laughed, shaking his head. “I’ll be sure not to pose for any pictures any time soon.” There was a silence for a while before he added, “worried about me or something?”

“You wish,” you snorted, “I was just wondering.” He chuckled as he pulled up to the curb. He got out of the car to open your door, more than likely out of habit. People in his car couldn’t usually get out on their own.

“Whatever you say, sweetheart,” he said as you stepped out of car. “Definitely not worried. Got it.”

“Why did you start calling me that?”

“Start calling you what?”

“Sweetheart,” you answered. Aaron shrugged, closing the car door as you walked away, eyes still trained on him. You watched him head back for the driver’s side, and he opened the door before he answered.

“Like I told you before, you said you wished I didn’t call you doll face.” He ducked into the car after that, leaving you to gape at him from right before your porch. You were amazed that A, he’d even heard you make that comment two weeks ago, and B, that he actually took that into consideration. He nodded at you before pulling away from the curb, heading in the direction of the beach. You waited until he was totally out of sight before heading towards the house. When you got inside, you saw that neither Lindsay nor Barbara were home. It took you a minute to realize they were both down at the beach, adding the magical last touches to the beach bash stuff like they did every year with Jack. You plopped yourself down onto the couch and flipped on the tv while you waited for them to come home so you could tell them everything.


	6. vi.

The beach bash the next day, and honestly, you were looking forward to it more than you usually did. You always enjoyed the party, and the free food was nice, but this year just seemed different. You were certainly free and clear and you wanted to celebrate that. You’d put on the outfit you’d bought a couple days ago and headed down to the beach with your friends feeling infinitely lighter than you had in almost a month. You and Jon, out of habit, clutched to your water bottles as you headed for the beach even though you’d be spending your day near the ocean. Castaway’s Shack’s owner always set up a bar on the beach you’d probably get your maximum of two drinks from. You’d remembered the last year before they imposed the two-drink maximum rule; it’d been ugly.

“How long do you think it’ll be this year before they actually make us go home?” Lindsay asked, “it’s supposed to end at like nine, right?”

“Probably two am?” Barbara suggested.

“Hey, we made it to midnight last year before Sheriff Buzzkill actually made anyone leave,” you pointed out. “I think, given the fact they’ve got better things to do this year, the bash can easily make it to two am.”

You quickly found out that that wasn’t going to be the case. You pretty quickly spotted Aaron, sunglasses on and arms crossed, on the edge of the tent that housed all the food. You shook your head, deciding you were just going to ignore him for once. He’d worked you up enough times over the last month and you were going to enjoy yourself come hell or high water.

“I think I’m going to go check out the food,” Barbara informed, “I’ll scout it out and report back!”

“There better be burgers! If there isn’t, don’t bother coming back!” Lindsay called out to her as she walked away.

“I think I’m going to go get a drink,” Jon mentioned,nodding towards the bar. “Anyone else want?”

“Yeah, I think I’m in,” you informed, looking over at Lindsay.

“I think I’ll wander a bit first,” she told you, “There has to be a volleyball net around here somewhere and I want in on that.”

“We’ll find you in a few!” you told her, giving her a thumbs up.

“Hopefully with burgers!” she laughed before disappearing into the crowd, but you figured she was heading for the shoreline. That was usually where they set up the volleyball nets, and it always came down to the point where only one of them was being used and shit got real. Lindsay was usually at the center of that scrum; she took her volleyball very seriously, and she hated to lose. She always complained about being sore for a few days afterwards, and she had bruises all up and down her arms. It never stopped her from jumping in the next year, only pausing to eat.

“So, I was going to ask if you wanted to grab food after we got drinks,” Jon started, leading the way towards the bar, “but I see someone you’re probably looking to avoid.”

“Definitely avoiding,” you informed, “I’m pretty hungry though, so I might need you to head him off.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he sighed. “I can probably find something to talk to him about for a couple minutes while you pile two of everything on your plate.”

“I will not!”

Jon laughed, shaking his head as he found a spot at the bar, putting his water bottle down and you followed suit. When the bartender appeared, his face seemed to jog your memory and you let out a noise of surprise. He gave you a wary glance, and Jon looked over at you too.

“What’s up?” Jon asked. You shook your head quickly, mumbling that nothing was wrong.

“What do you guys want?” the guy asked, and you both turned back to him. You both gave your orders, and he disappeared.

“He just…” you trailed off, whispering to Jon who had to lean in to hear you. “He keeps showing up and he never looks happy when he sees me.”

“Because you’re a drunken mess in his bar, probably,” Jon suggested. “[Y/N], I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” you sighed, offering him a small smile. He reappeared with your drinks, as well as two cards with one punch in each of them.

“Two drinks,” he said shortly, putting everything onto the bar. You each grabbed for both and wasting no time, headed for the food tent. You glanced over to where Aaron had been standing, but he wasn’t there anymore.

“Seems you’re safe,” Jon pointed out, chuckling a little as he took a sip of his drink. He stopped short, and so did you, looking at him curiously. “I forgot my water bottle.”

“Shit,” you swore, looking into your empty hand. “I did too. Give me a sec and I’ll go grab them.”  You turned back towards the bar, and slalomed your way back. The barman was eyeing you as you approached. As you reached him, you opened your mouth to explain why you’d come back but instead, he’d just placed yours and Jon’s water bottles in front of you.

“Thanks,” you said, and with a good deal of effort, you found a way to carry both rather large bottles, as well as your drink and headed back towards the food table. You dropped Jon’s bottle in front of him on the table holding a hot plate full of cheeseburgers. “So, has anyone told Lindsay there are burgers?”

“I saw Barb and she said she was just going to bring Lindsay one over,” he explained, “and then I said we’d meet her there? We can eat and watch them all play for a little while and then do whatever.”

“Sounds good to me!” you told him, reaching for an empty plate to fill. The two of you loaded up on all the best parts of the beach bash and headed out towards the shoreline where, sure enough, they had set up volleyball nets. Two of the four were already not being used and it wouldn’t be long until it was down to one ultra-serious game. Barbara was sitting not far from where Lindsay was playing and when she spotted you, she waved. You both plopped down next to her and and put down all the things in your hands.

“So,” you started, picking up the first thing you saw on your plate. “How’s the game going?” you asked before filling your mouth with food, glad to finally be eating. You’d forgone breakfast to enjoy as much as you could now.

“Lindsay’s already hit someone in the face,” informed Barbara, chuckling a little as she went for the soda she’d probably gotten from the food tent, left there for anyone who could not or would not drink.

“And we missed it?” Jon groaned. “We miss all the good shit, [Y/N]!”

“I know, it’s actually the worst,” you agreed, nodding with a serious face before you broke and laughed.

The whole day seemed to be going insanely well. You with your friends, Aaron was nowhere in sight, and the food was delicious. Jeremy appeared around the time the volleyball net tried to blow away, and by the time he was done tinkering, there was no way it was going anywhere any time soon. He stopped to sit down and talk with you guys for a little while and only once offered to buy your hair.

“What about Jon?!” you asked, motioning at him. “He’s also a siren!”

“Yeah, but Jon told me if I asked him again, he’d break all my tools,” Jeremy explain and Jon nodded.

“Then why can’t you stop asking me?!”

“Because, like I told you, there’s less sirens around here than you think,” he sighed. “And Jack’s stores are getting low.”

“I’m still not giving you my hair,” you sighed.

“One day, [Y/N], one day.”

You’d long since finished your first drink and you didn’t quite have it in you to get up for a second. You were warm and full and perfectly content to sit in the sand and continue to watch the now only volleyball game going on. Lindsay’s team was up by two and it was getting interesting. Besides, you’d brought your water bottle with you; you could just drink that instead. It’d taken you a minute to unscrew the top of it considering you were trying to do it without tearing your eyes away from the game. Once you had, you brought it to your lips to take a huge gulp.

The pain was instantaneous. Your mouth and your throat were in searing pain, and it was traveling its way down your gullet and towards your stomach. You could feel every inch of it moving inside of you and it burned worse than anything you’d felt in a long time. You dropped your bottle and began to cough, expelling what little water you hadn’t swallowed. You tried to take a deep breath but you found that you couldn’t and when you tried, it made the pain worse. You kept coughing to try and get the water out, but it was too far gone, and the coughing just made matters worse.

Everyone sounded far away as they scrambled to help. Your vision was blurry but you could see the outline of people running, and a few people coming towards you. You tried to speak, but you didn't have it in you to say anything. The attempt felt like a knife in your throat.

“Fuck!” the distant voice of Jon came, and then noise followed by “fresh water” a few second later. You heard a few indistinct voices saying what you assumed was your name but even they were getting further and further away.

Then, there was nothing.

When you next came to, you were blinded with sunlight but before you could react to that, you had to lean over to let everything in your stomach leave. You coughed up more than just the water you'd gulped down, and it all hurt more coming up than it had going down. You panted, falling back onto your back.

“Hey,” a voice said softly, and Aaron popped into your line of sight. He was white as a sheet and instead of the smirk he usually wore, concern was written all over his face. “Just take it easy for a minute.”

You tried to speak, but that knife was still in your throat. You winced before nodding, and he offered you a weak smile.

“Jeremy went to get Jack,” Jon's voice seemed to be forced calmness, “he’ll be back in a minute and you'll be fine.” You turned as best you could until you saw Jon, inspecting a large red welt on his hand. He'd come into contact with fresh water. You gave him a concerned look, but he was too engrossed in his hand to notice so you turned back to Aaron.

“Your water bottle had fresh water,” he explained, his voice still soft. The fact it was missing its usual bravado was what concerned you most.

Jeremy reappeared, panting heavily and holding a small bottle with a magenta liquid in it, which he held out to you. You reached up for it and closed shaky, clammy fingers around it and nodding at him in thanks. You went to sit up, and two pairs of your hands flew out to help you up, but it was Aaron's hand that stayed on your back and for once, he was actually comforting more than annoying. You went to pull the cork out of the bottle, praying for the moment that knife in your throat went away, but Jack had really stuck the cord in there. Aaron took the bottle with his free hand and pulled the cork out with his teeth before shoving it back into your hand. In any other instance, you'd protest but you were desperate.

The instant the potion reached your throat, you felt better. The searing pain you felt in most of your inner body quickly dulled to an ache and you sighed with relief as you moved the potion bottle away from your mouth. You could breathe without feeling like you were going to get stabbed; that was definitely good.

“What…” you started, panting slightly. Your voice was hoarse but it was usable without too much pain. “...the actual fuck?”

“Are you sure that’s your bottle?” asked Aaron, nodding towards the bottle at Jon’s feet, and when you saw it, you nodded. “You’re absolute sure?”

“Yeah,” you said, “there’s a big scratch on the side from when I dropped it off the porch.” Aaron looked from the bottle up at your roommates.

“And neither of you guys touched this?” he asked. “Didn’t fill it to bring it as your own?”

“Nah,” Lindsay said, shaking her head. “I don’t touch [Y/N]’s bottles.”

“I only touch them to empty them,” Barbara explained, “and I don’t refill them because this is fucking terrifying and I wouldn’t chance it.”

“And no one else touches it?”

“No,” you answered, “except you that one time but I’ve gone back to fill them since.”

“The bar,” stated Jon, making everyone look over at him. “We left our bottles at the bar when we got drinks and you had to go back to get them.”

“Let me see yours,” Aaron said, holding his hand out. Jon turned on the spot, looking for his bottle and ducked down to grab it from its spot in the sand. He held it out to Aaron and you all watched him unscrew it carefully and sniff it. He shook his head, screwing the lid back on and holding it back out to Jon.

“Salt water,” he informed. He looked back over at you with a scrutinizing look on his face. He looked as if he wanted to ask you something, but decided against it. Before he could say anything else, Mariel appeared and leaned down to whisper in his ear. He whispered back and she nodded before disappearing.

“Come on,” Aaron sighed, standing up and holding his hand out to you. “It’s time for you to go home.” You wanted to argue because you’d taken the potion and you’d be totally fine now, but as he pulled you to your feet, every part of your body hurt. Your head was throbbing and you still felt as if you could throw up again. You decided it was probably better to listen to him and only vomit in front of a crowd full of people once and just nodded.

“We’ll come with you,” Lindsay told you, turning to grab her pile of stuff from behind her.

“No,” you said quickly, and your voice failed, forcing you to clear your throat. You winced; that definitely hurt. “You guys should enjoy the beach bash.”

“I think,” Barbara started, reaching down to scoop up her own belongings, “we’ve all had enough fun for one day.”

“Yeah,” agreed Jon. “Besides, I need to do something about my hand.”

The five of you headed up the beach, Aaron’s arm around you to help support you, which you were thankful for. Your legs felt shaky and so sore you weren’t sure they’d support you on their own. You felt extremely uncomfortable as everything had kind of died off as the commotion of you both being poisoned while also drowning seemed to kill the vibe. The man at the bar was still glaring at you, making you feel even worse.

Then it hit you.

“My water bottle,” you said suddenly, turning back towards the shoreline.

  
“I’ll buy you another one, sweetheart,” Aaron chuckled, “come on.” He led you up towards the sidewalk with your friends going a little bit ahead.

“I can’t have that back, can I?” you asked quietly.

“You...wouldn’t want it back,” he told you, clearing his throat. “As I said, I’ll get you another one. Don’t worry about it.”

When you all reached your house, Aaron helped you to the couch before you collapsed, sighing with relief. The walk took a lot of out of you, though what had happened not an hour before definitely drained you more. Jon mentioned his hand, and Barbara led him down the hall where she kept her stores. When you’d moved in with her and Lindsay, and when they’d became friends with Jon, she’d started brewing siren-specific potions, like the one Jack had given Jeremy to give you as well as made some salves that would solve problems like fresh water burns.

“Do you want another bottle?” Lindsay asked, pointing towards the kitchen.

“Yeah, that’d be good,” you told her, smiling weakly. “Thanks, Lindsay.”

“Don’t worry about it, kid,” she said, smiling back. She disappeared into the kitchen and Aaron disappeared with her, leaving you alone.

You sighed quietly, letting your eyes fall shut. You felt _terrible_. You’d only had fresh water twice before, and neither had been as bad as that’d just been. A huge gulp, it turned out, caused an extreme amount of pain. You were more exhausted than the night Aaron had thrown you into the ocean and all you wanted to do was curl up in your bed and fall asleep, which also meant climbing all the way upstairs.

“It’s not going to kill you,” Aaron stated and you jumped. He looked at you, confused as he held out your water bottle.

“I didn’t hear you come back in,” you muttered, sitting up and grabbing the water bottle from him.

“Yeah, you were asleep,” he informed, chuckling a little. “I’d ask how you’re feeling but I think that answers it. I was out of the room a minute tops.”

“I feel like I almost just died,” you sighed, taking your water bottle. “Which isn’t far from the truth.” You chugged half the bottle, and Aaron watched, looking like he wanted to laugh. You shook your head as you pulled the bottle away. “I’m dehydrated,” you informed. “Don’t laugh at me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, sweetheart,” he told you. He had that look on his face again; he wanted to ask you something, but seemed to be debating whether or not to ask it at all.

“If you have a question, just ask,” you groaned. “Stop making that face and spit it out.” He sighed heavily, nodding a few times.

“Have you pissed anyone off lately?” he asked, and you could spot the shift into Sheriff mode. The tone was different and he stood up a little bit straighter. It was the only way you could tell if he was being serious or not.

“Besides you? I don’t think so.”

“You didn’t piss me off,” Aaron said seriously, frowning. “But I don’t think the fact you’ve been implicated in two murders and then poisoned is a coincidence.” You took your time taking another long swig from your water bottle, taking your time to consider his words.

“I don’t know why they’d pick me,” you explained, “I don’t exactly make a lot of waves, so to speak.”

“I...think this might have been a message meant for someone else,” he sighed, sitting down in the arm chair near the couch. “Meant for me, maybe.”

“What do I have to do with it?”

“I think it could have been anyone,” Aaron mused, “but picking you? They wanted to make sure I took notice. They knew I’d give a shit if it was you.” Your heart jumped into your throat as the words hit your ears and you sat up a little straighter.

“Why would you give a shit if it was me?” you asked quietly. Aaron made a face as if he regretted saying what he was thinking and shook his head.

“Just...that we know each other,” he explained quickly. “I’d take notice if it was someone I knew and you’re...you know, a siren. Makes for a good cover up.”

“I...guess,” you said, nodding a few times, but you weren’t quite buying it. You weren’t sure what it was, but his explanation didn’t sit well with you.

A silence fell over the room, and you were anxious for any of your friends to come back. Lindsay was supposed to have been in the kitchen, and should have come back when your water bottle did. Aaron had brought it to you, though, and she was nowhere to be seen. Barbara and Jon were just supposed to be in the store closet but neither of them had returned either, leaving you alone with Aaron, who was making you uneasy in a new sort of way you couldn’t place.

“You should probably get some sleep,” Aaron mentioned, “you’re not going to get any better without it.”

“Yeah,” you agreed, looking towards the stairs. “I just...gotta get up to my room.” You chuckled awkwardly, forcing yourself to drain the rest of the water bottle to stop it. “This is the only time I wish I was on the ground floor.”

“Come on,” he said, standing up. “I’ll shove you up the stairs if I have to.”

“You don’t have to,” you informed, and with a bit of effort, you managed to stand. “I’ll get there.” Your legs still hurt and felt like jelly at the same time, and you had to walk considerably slower than you usually did. Aaron followed next to you, looking a bit concerned as he watched. He stood behind you as you took your first step up the stairs. You were unsteady, and ended up grabbing onto the banister for support. You went for another step and just about lost your balance, causing you to swear loudly.

“There’s an easier way to do this,” Aaron sighed, “just...let me help you for once, [Y/N].” You sighed heavily before nodding. You didn’t like the idea but you had to admit, you needed his help. With that, he scooped you up to carry you up the stairs, and you were terrified he’d tumble back and you’d both go down. He managed to make it up the stairs and headed straight for your door way and before you could ask him _how_ he knew where to go, you remembered that he’d been up there once before. Aaron kicked the door open with his foot, and deposited you onto your bed.

“Thanks,” you muttered, feeling your cheeks warm as you looked up from your bed at him. Aaron was still giving you a strange sort of soft look you knew you’d never gotten from him before today.

“Don’t worry about it,” he told you. “You weight basically nothing.”

You snorted, “good to know.” There it was, the Aaron you knew.

“I’ll go,” he informed, nodding at the door before heading towards it. “Feel better,” he added quietly, offering you a smile from the doorway.

“I’ll try,” you told him, smiling back. “Goodnight, Aaron.”

“Goodnight, [Y/N].”

Exhausted, you barely made it into pajamas before collapsing into bed and falling promptly to sleep.

When you awoke in the morning feeling slightly better than you had been, you had to admit, you were not expecting to see Aaron Marquis sitting on your living room couch when you got to the bottom of the stairs.

“You're back,” you stated as the two of you locked eyes.

“I never left,” Aaron explained, shrugging.

You paused, giving him a confused look while you thought how to phrase your question. Eventually, you just went with, “why?”

“Because someone tried to kill you, sweetheart,” he answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I'm not going anywhere until we know that it's not happening again. I told you last night, someone's targeting you. They have to be.”

“Because of you,” you guessed. “Which still seems like a stupid reason to pick me of all people. We're not exactly friends.” Aaron made a face, and a noise like he had started to say something but stopped short.

“I got you more water,” he told you, though you doubt very much that it was what originally on his mind. “Left them in the kitchen.” He nodded towards the kitchen and you gave him a thumbs up. Without another word, you headed into the kitchen where you found both your roommates. Barbara was busying herself over her cauldron, and Lindsay was making her breakfast float while she read the newspaper.

“So does anyone know what the fuck _that_ is?” you asked, jerking your thumb back in Aaron's direction.

“That,” Lindsay answered, grabbing her bagel out of the air to take a bite. “Is Jon being right.”

“What?!” you hissed, narrowing your eyes at her.

“You didn't see him yesterday,” she sighed, looking away from her newspaper. “He was just as freaked as we were,” Lindsay pointed her half-eaten bagel at herself and Barbara, “and you should have seen him when he realized it was you.”

“You're crazy,” you said shortly. “He thinks someone's using me as a way to get his attention.”

“Because he's in love with you,” your roommate pointed out.

You groaned, “please, Lindsay. Not you too.”

“Hey, I just call it as I see it,” she informed, “and trust me, I saw it.” You looked at Barbara, hoping she'd be the voice of reason, but she was looking determinedly at her cauldron and not either of you.

“I take it you agree with her?” you asked Barbara.

“I…” she trailed off, still not looking at you. “See where they're coming from,” she finished after a moment.

“Seriously?!”

“You might not want to see it,” sighed Barbara, “and that's your business but I know what I saw.”

“All three of you are insane,” you huffed, spinning on your heel to face the counter to grab a bottle of water. You reached for the nearest one, stopping once your hand had closed on a bottle. “Huh.”

“What?” Barbara asked.

“He actually got me a new bottle,” you said lamely. Sure enough, there was the right number of bottles and one of them, which looked similar to the rest but not quite the same, still had stickers declaring it was BPA-free on it.

“Of course he did. He told you he was going to,” Lindsay told you.

“Yeah,” you mumbled, taking the bottle with you and heading back into the living room. Something about that made you feel some sort of way and you couldn't sort out what it was or why. You threw yourself into the armchair next to the couch, taking a swig of the salt water in your bottle. Aaron looked up from his phone at you, eyebrows knitting together.

“What?” he asked.

“Why are you still here?”

“We went over this like two minutes ago, sweetheart,” he told you, chuckling slightly.

“No, I get the whole you thinking someone's trying to get me because of you thing,” you sighed. “I mean, I don't really, but I get _your_ point of view in this. But I don't see why you're the one who has to hang around. Shouldn't the sheriff be doing more important things?”

“This is plenty important, sweetheart,” Aaron told you. “Besides, I’ve been chasing the wrong trail for _weeks_. There's something I'm not seeing.”

“That I was innocent the whole time?” you guessed bitterly. “And that you were wasting your time?”

“No, I see that now,” he admitted. “But that's my point. I _missed_ something. I had to have missed something. It's been driving me insane since the third body turned up, and I…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “In any case, I gave it to two of the detectives and maybe they can make some sense of it.”

“That seems about right,” you noted, going for another mouthful of water.

“What?”

“I'm amazed you do any work,” you told him, “your track record just doesn't support it.”

“I did plenty in those group projects, if that's what you're talking about. But you just made the presentations look so much nicer. And you were a better writer,” he chuckled, giving you that smile you usually saw in his face. That made you feel like things were almost normal; the concerned face he'd been wearing just didn't fit Aaron to you.

“Bullshit,” you shot back, “you just wanted to coast through the class and you knew if I was stuck with you, you could.”

“You enjoyed being stuck with me, sweetheart,” he chuckled.

“In what world would I _ever_ enjoy being stuck with you?”

“You kept picking me as a partner,” he pointed out, smiling a little wider.

You opened your mouth to retort, but before you could, you could hear Jon’s voice coming from the kitchen. Aaron’s eyes narrowed in the direction of the kitchen and he sighed and stood up. Unable to help yourself, you slid out of the arm chair and followed after him into the kitchen. Sure enough, Jon was standing there, water bottle in hand with a grin on his face. You watched it slide right off as he caught sight of Aaron.

“Didn’t I tell you guys not to open any doors?” Aaron asked, sliding into his serious Sheriff tone once more, crossing his arms as he looked at your roommates in turn. They each glanced at each other, then Jon, and then to Aaron.

“It’s just Jon,” Lindsay pointed out, nodding at him. “He’s literally the only person who ever comes our back door.”

“That’s not the point,” Aaron sighed, “the point is that it could have been anyone and I need to know about it before you do it. I’m here for a reason, you know.”

“Right,” said Barbara, nodding a couple times. “Sorry?”

“I can just leave,” Jon suggested, jerking his thumb towards the back door.

“No!” you exclaimed. “You know you’re welcome here any time.” You glared at Aaron, who gave you a look in return. “Besides, you’re already here and correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s movie day.”

“That it is,” Lindsay confirmed.

“Then you _can’t_ leave,” you pointed out. “Otherwise you break tradition and I don’t know about you, but I’ve had more than enough bad luck for a lifetime.”

“What,” started Aaron, looking at all of you in turn, “the hell is movie day? I don’t think that’s a thing.”

“It is in this house,” you declared, “Jon gets to pick the movies we watch though and they have to be a set.”

“And I picked a good one,” Jon informed, turning around to show off the backpack he was wearing. “And don’t worry, there’s only three of them.”

It was weird, trying to account for someone else for movie day. There were barely enough spots to sit for the four of you, and now you had Aaron. You ended up sitting between him and Jon on the couch, even though you tried as hard as you could to distance yourself from Aaron. You were sure you sitting next to him wasn’t an accident and you weren’t happy about it.

Aaron was very in the habit of looking away from the screen to instead look towards windows or doors, and you seeing it from the corner of your eye was distracting. Every time he’d look away from the screen, the movement would force you to do so too. After the first couple times, you realized that there wasn’t anything wrong, it was just what Aaron did and try as you did to not look when he did, you couldn’t help it. Around the middle of the first movie, you began to glare at the back of his head while he looked around, but always turned back to the screen when he turned towards you.

At the end of the first movie, Barbara had suggested pizza, which everyone was all for. Everyone except Aaron, who didn’t like the idea of inviting someone to the door, even if it was to deliver a pizza. Instead, she and Jon went to go get the order, leaving you and Lindsay alone with Aaron.

“I’m going to take a walk,” he informed, standing up and nodding towards the door. “Don’t leave the house, don’t open the door for anyone…” he trailed off and smiled. “And don’t miss me too much.” You rolled your eyes.

“I’ll be sure not to,” you muttered as he walked out the front door, closing it behind him.

“So…” Lindsay trailed off, “this is fun, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” you sighed, looking over at her. “It’s a real blast. I can’t leave my house, and I’m stuck with _him_.”

“Hey,” she said, shrugging, “at least he gives enough of a shit to try and keep you alive.”

“I guess,” you agreed, but for some reason, the idea hit you hard.

“He could have let you fend for yourself,” she pointed out, “or stuck you with someone useless.”

“Yeah,” you muttered, making a face. “It's just weird.”

“I’d imagine! I'd be way more freaked if someone was trying to murder me,” she informed. “I don't know how you're keeping so cool.”

“Drinking the wrong water takes a lot out of you,” you told her, “but that's not what's weird.”

“What's weird?”

“Aaron,” you explained, and when she made a face as if to tell you not to start again but you cut her off before she could say anything. “No, it's just! I don't know. He's been very un-Aaron. I would have figured he'd have enjoyed having the upper hand more than he seemed to. He's teased me relentlessly for ages and the one time I couldn't do anything about it, he seemed less than thrilled to see me there at all. And yesterday? He seemed concerned?”

“Probably because he was,” Lindsay said matter of factly. Before she could say anything else, Aaron reappeared from the kitchen. You hadn't heard the back door open but you almost never did. Lindsay had charmed it because the squeaking could be heard down the block. Now, it made absolutely no noise, which in that moment, seemed worse.

“Why would I enjoy that?” Aaron asked, confusion written all over his face.

“What?” you asked stupidly, staring over at him, eyes wide.

“Do you actually think I enjoyed arresting you?” he asked. “Why the fuck would that be a good thing for me?” He sounded indignant.

“I'm uh, going to use the bathroom,” Lindsay pipped up before promptly disappearing from the living room.

“I…” you trailed off, feeling sheepish under his gaze. “You...you've always enjoyed having the upper hand? In college, you always were an ass when you did better in a class or…”

“You actually think that me gloating meant that I'd be excited to interrogate you?”

“I...guess so?”

Aaron exhaled loudly, nodding a couple times and making a face usually reserved for disgusting. “Alright,” he said gruffly, “I see.”

“Aaron, I…” you started, feeling you absolutely had to apologize but he just held his hand up.

“Don't worry about it. I'm just going to sit outside. Be easier to see someone coming,” he informed, and he disappeared through the front door.

You felt like you had done something very wrong. You'd said plenty of terrible things to Aaron over the years, but that had been the first time he'd ever reacted like that. Your heart settled itself somewhere in your stomach, and you sat there, eyes closed until you heard the front door open and Jon and Barbara appear. You opened your eyes to see Barbara holding a pizza box and then Jon appeared with a smaller box for his pizza.

“What the hell happened?” Jon asked as he shut the door. “You look like someone just kicked your dog and Aaron looks mad enough to just wolf out.”

“Don't worry about it,” you told him, shaking your head. “Let's just watch the next movie.”

Lindsay reappeared just as as you divided up the pizza, but she didn't ask what had happened. You were thankful for that, and you were all too busy eating your pizza and watching the next movie to dwell on the strange vibe any more. Try as you did to try and push the feeling aside, you just couldn't ignore that feeling in the pit of your stomach. Every once in awhile, you'd look towards the door and feel worse knowing Aaron was out there.

Once the movie was over, Lindsay and Barbara decided they'd walk Jon home, just in case anyone started going for your friends now you had someone watching over you. You saw right through it; you knew they wanted to leave you and Aaron alone. You knew for sure when Lindsay gave you a look and nodded towards the front door while telling you they'd be going out the back door. You sighed and shook your head as they disappeared. You snuck upstairs, thankful that your legs would support you, and pulled on a sweater to warm up. You'd thought about leaving Aaron to his thoughts a million times, but you still found yourself crossing the threshold to find him sitting on the porch swing.

“Aren't you getting cold?” you asked, feeling the chill as you closed the front door behind you. Aaron shook his head, not looking at you.

“Werewolf, remember?” He still sounded mad. You frowned.

“Right,” you said, nodding and taking a few cautious steps towards him. “I'm, you know, not one. I didn't know you could run on less sleep until this whole thing. Or is that just a you thing?”

“Does it matter?” he shot, still not looking at you.

“I guess not,” you admitted, deciding to perch yourself on the railing across from him. He looked over at you finally, and that was one of the first times you understood what anger looked like on Aaron Marquis.

“What do you want, [Y/N]?”

“To apologize,” you explained sheepishly. “I said some really unfair things and I'm sorry.” He made a face, shaking his head.

“Just said how you feel,” he pointed out, voice still seething with anger.

“And it's unfair of me,” you told him. “I have a hard time separating Aaron, who was in my classes and never said a nice thing to anyone in college and Aaron, city sheriff. I know you were just doing your job, and I can't say I'm happy to be accused of murder, but Mariel told me you didn't want to be investigating me in the first place and you know what? I believe that.” When Aaron shot you a look, you added, “I do! Really. I think sometimes I forget we’re not kids anymore.”

Aaron sighed, and shifted on the porch swing. When he did, something slipped out of his pocket and onto the porch itself and you bent down to grab it before it was swept away by the wind. You turned over the folded paper in your hand a couple times. It was definitely a photograph.

“Wait, don't…” Aaron started as your curiousity got the better of you and began to unfold it. Before he could stop you, you'd unfolded it entirely to reveal a picture of...you. You and Jon. It'd been a picture taken at a party during college, which you could tell by Jon’s hair and because you saw that picture every day. You had a copy of it hanging up in your room...except, you realized, the copy in your hands _was_ the copy from your bedroom wall. You knew for sure because Aaron had been in the background and once, when you were feeling particularly annoyed at him, you'd scratched his face out with a sharpie.

“Where did you get this?” you asked quietly. “Don't answer that,” you added quickly. “I know it's from my wall but _why_ do you have this? Why take it?”

“You know,” Aaron sighed, and he didn't sound angry anymore, “I always thought the arguing was just kind of our thing. But you _actually_ hate me, don't you?”

You felt like you’d just had the wind knocked out of you. You continued to stare the the black spot on the picture and struggled to find the right words. “I...no, I don’t hate you,” you told him finally, making a face and looking up from the picture. Aaron had stood up from the porch swing and was now standing in front of you, one arm resting on the column you were sitting next to.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked, voice quiet. “Because the whole sharpie over my face thing sure makes it seem like you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” you repeated, more definitively that time. “You just...you drive me insane, you know that? You tease me relentlessly and you call me doll face and sweetheart and you’ve been doing it for what, like ten years now? I get frustrated! And really, really annoyed because fucking christ, you can get so goddamn annoying. If anything, _you’re_ the one that hates _me_.” Aaron raised an eyebrow and chuckled, shaking his head as that smirk slid back onto his face.

“[Y/N],” he started, still laughing slightly, “I don’t hate you.”

“You’re kind of a dick,” you pointed out, and he laughed again. “You can see why I’d think that. You haven’t exactly given me any reason to believe otherwise.” Aaron nodded a couple times as he mulled what you said over.

“Fair enough,” he agreed. With that, he took your face in either one of his large hands, and you couldn't help but notice how warm he was. He leaned down, pulling your face to his and pressing his lips firmly against yours. You weren’t sure how to react, and before you properly could, he was pulling away from you, that smile on his face again as he looked you dead in the eye.

You couldn’t even describe how it was you felt; your heart was doing flips somewhere in your throat, and your cheeks flushed. It was _Aaron_ who had kissed you, who was standing in front of you, staring you straight in the eye as he stroked your cheek with his thumb. You were always revolted at the idea of him being interested in you when Jon had brought it up, but it was a fact more than a suggestion now, and you were surprised how okay with it you were.

“Does that give you enough reason to believe I don’t hate you?” he asked, not breaking eye contact.

“I...uh…” you said quietly, “might need you to run that by me again.” You weren’t entirely sure why you’d said that, but you also weren’t rushing to correct yourself. Aaron chuckled, nodding a few times.

“I think I can do that, sweetheart,” he told you, and bent down to kiss you again.

Your mind was racing, but you were kissing him back happily that time. Your arms found their way around him, pulling him in just a little bit closer. You weren’t sure how you’d gone from feeling nothing but anger when you saw Aaron to kissing him, but at the moment, you weren’t going to complain. The kiss left you breathless and a little confused, but you weren’t going to complain.

“I...uh…” you started quietly, “I get why you said someone would be using me to get to you now.”

Aaron sighed, nodding. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he told you seriously. “Well...anything else.” You chuckled, squeezing him a little.

“I know,” you said. “If I were worried about it, you’d know.”

Admittedly, you were terrified. In less than a month, you’d been accused of committing of two murders, and then poisoned yourself. If there was any reason to be on edge, you had it. Still, you had to admit, having Aaron in your corner had proven to be more of a comfort before your talk. He seemed to take his job far too seriously for you to think that having him around wouldn’t make a difference. The fact you two, for once, had an understanding was a bonus. You were, honestly, insanely confused how you’d gone from wanting to punch him to wanting to kiss him but you were also strangely okay it with. It was something for future you to figure out.

After kissing for a while, the both of you found yourselves on the porch swing. He tucked you into his side, which you gladly curled up against. It was chilly outside and he was warm. The two of you sat in silence for a while; Aaron rocked the swing gently, rubbing your arm with his hand. As you worked through your thousand thoughts, you had a question that you were nervous to ask but you needed to know.

“So,” you started. “I need to ask you something because it’s been bothering me since it happened.”

“Oh boy,” he chuckled. “Go for it, sweetheart.”

“Do you remember when I told you what i was?” you asked nervously. Aaron used his leg to stop the chair and he stiffened for a moment.

“When you told me you were a siren?”

“Yeah.”

“I remember it,” he said nonchalantly. “What about it?”

“You looked at me like I was the devil,” you told him. “Why?” Aaron sighed heavily, raising the hand that wasn’t resting on your arm to rub his face.

“Because I was young and stupid,” he explained. “I was thinking about you all the time and then you told me...I just...I thought you’d been using your call on me.”

“Like I’d ever use my call on you,” you scoffed, groaning as the words hit your ears. “Sorry, Aaron. I didn’t mean it.”

“Nah, you did,” he stated, looking hurt but nodding. “I don’t blame you. I was, as you said, a dick. But hey, now I know?” You leaned over to press an apologetic kiss to his cheek.

“Sorry I brought it up.”

“Don’t be,” he said, shrugging. “You said it was still bothering you. I doubt it was going to stop because I kissed you.”

“I guess,” you mumbled. “But now I know and just move the fuck on.”

“We could both probably stand to move on a bit,” he said.

“Sounds like a plan to me!” You smiled over at him, and when he looked over at you properly, you had to cover your mouth to hide the yawn. He chuckled a little, moving his arm away from you, making you pout.

“You should go get some sleep,” he suggested. “You still have some recovering to get done and it’s easier with sleep.”

“But I can just stay here,” you countered, “you’re warm and it’s not right you’re sitting out here by yourself.”

“Don’t you worry about me, sweetheart,” he told you. “One of the detectives is coming to fill me in about the investigation and I’ll be here when you get up.” You went to protest, only for it to be overpowered by another yawn. The cold night air was making your body ache more and while curling up with Aaron was helping, you couldn’t help but think wistfully of your bed upstairs.

“Go on,” he told you. “Go get some sleep.”

“Fine,” you sighed. “Only because my bed is more comfortable than this swing.”

“I’m sure it is.” He leaned over to kiss the side of your head. “I’ll see you when you get up.” You sighed, leaning over to kiss him, and when you went to pull away, Aaron’s hand found its way to your hair, fingers threading through it. You pulled away reluctantly, sighing a little.

“I thought you were telling me to go to bed,” you chuckled, nudging your nose against his.

“You should,” he muttered. He leaned forward to capture your lips again but pulled away soon after. “Before I decide I’d rather have you down here.”

“Well, I’d rather be down here,” you mentioned. “If that makes the decision easier.”

“Harder,” he sighed, letting his hand fall into his lap. “Goodnight, [Y/N].” You chuckled a little, pulling away from him.

“I’m going, I’m going,” you told him, standing up and stepping around the porch swing to the front door. “Goodnight, Aaron. You’ll be here in the morning, right?”

“Wouldn't want to be anywhere else.” He paused, looking up at you. “Under better circumstances, maybe. Finding my way upstairs would be nice. But I’m not going anywhere.”

“Well, we’ll see about the rest of that,” you laughed, reaching for the front door. “I’ll see you in the morning. At least be inside?”

“I will be,” he told you. “Now go.”

“I’m going,” you said, waving your free hand as you opened the door with the one resting on the handle. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” he repeated, smiling at you. You smiled back before stepping back inside and closing the door behind you. You headed up to bed, but it took you a while to fall asleep with the thoughts swirling around your head. Eventually though, you succumbed to sleep.


	7. vii.

The next few days were more of the same. You tried to keep the newfound common ground between you and Aaron, but the fact your arguments didn't have the same bite to them that they usually did was apparently enough of a tip off for your friends. Jon just gave you a knowing look when it hit him; you were honestly amazed he said nothing more about it. Though, you were sure he would sooner or later. It'd probably just not be until you were alone.

You'd been planning on going to Castaway’s Shack the weekend before Halloween since going out on actual Halloween would prove to be a bore; no one wanted to party hard on a weekday. With everything that'd happened, it made sense that you that Aaron wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of you leaving the house, let alone going to Castaway’s Shack where it was going to be extremely crowded. It took you a while but you eventually wore him down; it helped you promised to not stray too far from him during the night. You and Lindsay had tried to talk him into dressing up but he was firm on the ‘no’ stance, though the time you’d tried to convince him while you were alone, he didn’t so much tell you no as kiss you until you couldn’t remember what you’d been talking about.

In the end, you didn't care about it, you were just glad you were going. Your costume, admittedly, both took no time to put together and took _awhile_ to put on properly. Pop art was a fun choice but getting all the dots in the right places and properly freehanding what needed outlining had taken you longer than you'd hoped it would. When you appeared downstairs, Jon was already there.

“It's about time,” Barbara joked, “we better hurry up before they're out of booze.”

It turned out that it was less of a joke than any of you had hoped. You’d gone to order your usual drink, only to find out your preferred brand proved especially popular considering the drink specials and Castaway’s was firmly out of it. You ended up with a top shelf version that meant that, with the specials, you ended up spending about the same amount on the drink as you usually did. Considering all the extra people, you and your friends ended up standing at one of the table tops that were screwed into a far wall, and even then, you had to shove yourselves into the space.

“There's so many people here,” Barbara mentioned, looking around in confusion. “I know it's busy here Halloween weekend, but this seems extreme, even for Castaway’s.”

“It has to be against fire code or some shit,” Jon mentioned, taking a sip of his drink.

“It is,” Aaron confirmed, crossing his arms while he looked around. “But that's not why I'm here and I'm going to pretend I see about a hundred less people in here.”

“It cannot be that many extra people,” Jon said, chuckling. “Maybe fifty, max.”

“This place operates over capacity all summer,” Aaron explained, shrugging. “We shut it down if it gets bad enough but ten or so is reasonable, depending.”

“Depending on what?” asked Barbara, looking over at Aaron.

“Depending on whether or not I can find somewhere to sit or not,” he told her, smiling. He chuckled at the look on her face, turning to you. You just shook your head, taking a sip of the drink of your drink to keep yourself from laughing.

“I seriously cannot tell if he's joking or not,” Lindsay stated, looking from Aaron to you and back.

“Join the fucking club,” you chuckled, looking over at her and shaking your head again. “I assure you, it doesn't get easier. Right, Jon?”

“I don't know,” mused Jon, “Aaron's got a tell or two.”

“Do I?” Aaron asked, sounding amused. “Like what?”

“I'm not telling you,” Jon informed, smirking. “Once you know, I lose my edge.”

“But you're going to tell me, right?” you asked, giving Jon a look.

“We’ll talk,” he assured, patting your shoulder, and you both laughed. You laughed harder at the annoyed look on Aaron’s face. You really started to come around to being on good terms with him, but there was still that underlying need to annoy him. You were also pretty sure the desire to annoy was mutual.

The group of you stood around for a while, drinking and chatting away as best you could over the music. After a little while, more friends of yours appeared to join the group, and you spread down the wall. Aaron made a face every time someone new appeared and inched his way towards you, keeping at least your arms touching at all times as if to remind you that you said you'd stay close. Jeremy appeared at one point to ask how you were feeling, but also introduce your group to his housemates Gavin and Trevor. Gavin, as it turned out, worked with Aaron as he informed you, making Aaron make a face. When he went to go on to tell you about Aaron at work, he quickly veered Gavin in Lindsay’s direction because they apparently knew each other too.

“You know I’m going to hear about you from other people sooner or later, right?” you whispered in his ear. He shrugged, shaking his head.

“I know,” he told you, “but...just do me a favor and ignore Gavin, sweetheart.”

“Whatever you say, Aaron.” You paused before chuckling a little as a realization hit you.

“What?” he asked, giving you a look.

“I just realized I actually _miss_ you calling me doll face,” you told him, still chuckling. “Sweetheart almost doesn’t sound right coming from you.”

Not long after, you decided you had to go to the bathroom and Lindsay declared that she’d go with you. It took a while to get to the other because of how big your group had gotten and that you now had to wade your way through people. You had a moment of being temporarily dazzled by Jeremy’s roommate, Trevor, but Lindsay just chuckled and pulled you towards the bathroom.

“Don’t stare too long,” she whispered in your ear. “I don’t think your man would like that.” You opened your mouth to retaliate because if she was insinuating Aaron was ‘your man’ she was _very wrong_ , but she just added, “besides, he’s an incubus. I don’t think he means it but he’s a lot like you when you drink and start calling.”

“Whatever you say, Linds,” you said, blinking a couple times. The two of you finally broke away from the crowd, declaring you’d be back in a minute.  Aaron went to follow you two but you stopped him. He raised an eyebrow at you, opening his mouth to protest.

“We’re just going to the bathroom,” you informed, “and Lindsay’s coming with me. We’re going in pairs for safety. I promise I’ll be okay. We’ll be back in like, five minutes, tops. If we’re any longer, you can come busting in on official business or however you’d justify that.” He looked from you to Lindsay, who smiled and nodded at him. Aaron sighed and nodded.

“Fine, but come straight back,” he told you seriously and you gave him the thumbs up before disappearing.

It definitely took the two of you more than five minutes to get into and out of the bathroom. You hadn’t exactly accounted for all the extra people that were in Castaway’s for Halloween. The line had been annoying, but eventually the two of you were free. On your way back to the group, you spotted an opening at the bar. You tapped Lindsay on the shoulder to get her attention and pointed at the bar.

“I’m going to grab another drink!” you told her, “I’ll meet you back over there.”

“Okay! I’ll take the long way back so Aaron isn’t too pissed we split up,” she explained before disappearing into the crowd.

You slid up to the bar, smiling brightly due to your luck. It was one of those nights where if you could see the bar at all, it’d be a miracle. Yet, there was a totally open spot for you and you were going to take it. Admittedly, the bartender, the perpetually mad looking man who always seemed to glare at you, was incredibly busy and it took him a while to make your way to you. You were a little impatient because Lindsay could only buy you so much time. When you were about to give up, he appeared, sliding a shot in front of you.

“Shot for you patience,” he explained in his gruff voice. “What can I get you?”

“Just a vodka and whatever you still have to mix it with,” you told him. “I know it’s not the night to be picky.” You took the shot in your hand, smiling at him. “Thanks!” you said before tapping the glass on the bar and taking the shot. He smiled at you, but the smile made you uneasy for some reason and headed away.

Pretty instantly, you felt wrong. Your mouth went dry as the shot left it, and you could feel the room starting to spin. If you’d been drinking all night, it would have made sense, but there was zero reason for a shot to be making you feel like you were going to pass out so quickly. You grabbed onto the bar, taking a few deep breaths as your vision started to go fuzzy. You tried to steady yourself and to blink away the fuzziness, but neither seemed to work. Before you knew it, you were on the floor and then you were out cold.

When you woke up, you were freezing. It smelled like ocean water and you could hear the waves, but it getting to be too cold at night to be near the water. You shivered and went to pull your arms closer to you, but you were met with resistance. You frowned, and went to try again but were only met with more resistance and the sound of chains rattling. With some effort, you wrenched your eyes open to find yourself no longer in Castaway’s Shack. Instead, you were in a covered dock, usually reserved for the fancier members of the city population and their fancy boats. You looked around, confused as you tried to figure out how you'd ended up there.

“It's about time you woke up.”

You whipped around to see a pair of legs; when you looked up you saw the angry looking bartender from Castaway’s Shack...except he didn't look angry anymore. He looked pleased; he looked _amused._ The look on his face made your stomach churn.

“What am I doing here?” you asked him, your voice coming out slightly more hoarse than usual.

“Don't you want to know _where_ you are?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. You turned back around to look out onto the water and then back at him.

“Marina,” you stated. He made a face and scoffed.

“Brat.”

“Yeah, yeah. Been there, called every name in the book,” you sighed, forgetting temporarily the situation you were in. Being snarky was usually reserved for when you weren’t chained to a dock after being drugged and being moved without you having a say. It hit you then that Lindsay had to have gone back to the table without you and that Aaron would have a thing or two or say about that.

“You know this won’t end well for you, right?” you asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “I doubt the sheriff is going to like it when he realizes I’m not at the bar anymore.” While you’d hoped that’d put some fear into him, all the bartender did was look at you and grin. He kneeled down until he was face to face with you, getting uncomfortably close to your face. You could smell whiskey and something earthy on his breath.

“Little mermaid, I’m counting on it,” he whispered, but the tone only made him menacing. You immediately wanted to tell him you were a _siren_ , not a mermaid, but the correction got lost in your throat. He sniffed, nodded once, and stood back up. He disappeared in a cabinet behind you, rummaging around for something. You tugged experimentally on your bonds again to find there wasn’t much give.

“There’s only two links between you and the floor,” the man told you from the closet. “And it’s steel, so you’re not going anywhere until I want you to. Don’t waste your time.”

“Great,” you sighed. You paused for a moment, trying to crane your neck around the cabinet door to try and see what was in there to give you some idea of what you were in for, but no such luck. “Do...do I get to know anything or…” you trailed off, looking up at him.

He chuckled. “You’re not a very patient person, are you?”

“No,” you sighed. “I can’t say that I am. Especially when I’m fucking chained to a dock.”

“Well,” he started, “I’ll give your lap dog another five minutes before I start tangling his food right in front of him.”

“Okay, you talking like that is getting real annoying,” you informed, making a face. “You can _just_ call him by his name. You sound like a shitty b-movie villain.”

That comment got his attention. His rummaging stopped, and he took two steps out from behind the cabinet doors. He glared down at you, seemingly contemplating what was to be done with you. The look on his face made your stomach churn in fear, but you stared ever defiantly back at him. He hummed, turning back to the cabinet and returning with a rag and duct tape. All you had to do was not open your mouth and you’d be fine.

“I’ve had enough of your mouth, little mermaid,” he told you, bending down to your height. You huffed, trying not to open your mouth, but your pride, as it always did, got the better of you.

“I’m not a fucking mer—” you started, but the rest of the sentence by the rag being shoved into your mouth. You gagged, trying to force it back out, but the duct tape he was placing over your mouth wouldn’t let you.

“There,” the bartender said, smirking. “Better already. Just sit there and look pretty for your lap dog to come play the hero.”

You tried your best to tell him to go fuck himself (you weren’t particularly happy about the situation you found yourself in, but him calling Aaron a ‘lap dog’ seemed to bug you more) but it just came out a muffled nothing. It made him laugh as he turned back to the cabinet, disappearing behind the doors again. It wasn’t long until the wadded up material caused your jaw to start to ache. As much as you didn’t like the fact you were being used as bait, you trusted Aaron to have a backup plan to the apparent trap. You just hoped he’d get there sooner or later and in the meantime, you kept trying to see around the cabinet door and watched the boats in other docks bob up and down. It wasn’t like you could do anything else if you couldn’t get your hands free.

It wasn’t too much longer until movement at the edge of the dock’s overhang got your attention. You tried to move as inconspicuously as possible as you craned your neck to make sure the bartender was still in the cabinet and then back in the direction of the movement. You saw Aaron’s head peek out from around the corner, and if you could have smiled, you would have. You’d never been quite so relieved to see him as you were in that moment. He caught sight of you, and you watched his face contort into anger. Your eyes went from his face to the gun he was holding, and your stomach churned again. You closed your eyes, preparing for the worst but instead of Aaron going for the bartender, you felt the duct tape being tugged away. He was trying to be gentle with it, but it only hurt worse. Once the tape was gone, you spit out the rag, and opened your eyes. He’d put his gun back in its holster.

“What are you doing?” you hissed.

“Coming to save you,” he informed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Shame,” the bartender chuckled, and you could hear him step back from the cabinet and Aaron’s eyes left your face to look up. “You’re slipping, Sheriff. Who doesn’t clear a room first?” When he didn’t answer, the man chuckled again and you could feel what was unmistakably a barrel of a gun being pressed up against the back of your head. “You’ll take that gun out of the holster and slide it to me, or you can watch the little mermaid’s head get blown off.”

“I’m a siren,” you hissed, unable to stop yourself. Even with a gun pointed at your head, your pride got the better of you. “If you call me a mermaid _one more time_ I swear to god I’ll…”

“You’ll what?” he sneered. “I’ve got a gun to your head and the only key to release you. So really, little mermaid, what are you going to do to me?”

“I still don’t see why she has to be involved in this,” Aaron said, his voice unnaturally even. “You want my gun? Fine.” With that, he slowly reached for his holster, taking his gun out and sliding it towards the man’s feet. You sighed in relief as the barrel pressed to your head disappeared as he went for the gun. You heard the cabinet door creak, and Aaron shuffled to your side to inspect your bindings.

“You okay?” he whispered, not meeting your eye as he asked.

“Yeah,” you muttered. “Can’t say I feel great, but I’m not dead.”

“You could just ask for the key,” the bartender mentioned in a light tone. You whipped around to see him, holding the key, looking amused as he held it over the two of you. Aaron snarled something indiscernible, but before he could stand, the gun was being pushed against your head again.

“You said she didn’t have to be involved,” the bartender pointed out. “Why don’t you be a good dog and take a couple steps back and she doesn’t have to be.” Aaron’s eyes darted from him to you as if to ask what you wanted to do. You shrugged, and he sighed heavily.

“Fine,”  Aaron said, standing up straight and taking a few steps back from where you were kneeling. Once he was back far enough, with the gun still pressed against you, the man unlocked your bonds. You sighed happily, taking a moment to flex them and enjoy being freed. Before you could enjoy it for too long, however, he was pulling you up by the elbow to your feet.

“Ow,” you grumbled, trying to pull your arm away, but he only squeezed tighter.

“Shut up,” he told you, sounding annoyed. “You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you as soon as he got here.” The idea made your heart jump into your throat, and you made a face. You could have sworn you saw Aaron’s fist twitch, but it relaxed as he pushed his palm to his leg. He looked like he wanted to try something, but he seemed to be trying to figure out how to best go about things.

“Wyatt, come on,” Aaron sighed. “Don’t drag her into this anymore than you have.”

“You know him?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I know everyone,” Aaron told you, “but Wyatt and I seem to be making quite the history for ourselves. What I don’t understand is what I did to warrant you framing and then kidnapping [Y/N] to get my attention.”

“Business isn’t great with you sniffing around.”

“The bar?” you asked in confusion. “I don’t think I’ve ever been there where you weren’t busy and have you _seen_ it tonight?”

“Not the bar, you idiot,” the man named Wyatt hissed. “There are other, more lucrative ways to make money around here. Except for when the Sheriff starts bringing people in and seizing your merchandise.”

“Well, maybe if you kept to legal merchandise, we wouldn’t have a problem,” Aaron shot back. That was met with the man with the gun to your head shoving you forward suddenly, and Aaron’s eyes got wide.

“Alright, alright,” he started, watching the bartender closer as he pushed you closer towards the end of the covered part of the dock. “Wyatt, come on. She hasn’t done anything to you.”

“I know,”  he said, stopping just short of where the dock met the water. “As I said, I agree she doesn’t have to be involved.”

With that, there was a hard shove against your back, sending you into the water. You were surprised, but you weren’t exactly sure what he’d been trying to accomplish. Admittedly, the water was choppy, but you were more at home in the water than anywhere else. He had to have known that considering the fact you’d said it not five minutes before. Still, you took your time swimming back to the surface while you tried to calm yourself down and just in case he was waiting for you to resurface. When you finally did reappear to peek over the edge of the dock into the covered area, you weren’t sure what you’d expected to see...but a full sized wolf looming over a bleeding bartender certainly wasn’t it. Cautiously, you pulled yourself up back onto the dock, shaking the wet hair out of your face.

“What,” you started, “the actual fuck was that?” Both the wolf and the man looked over in your direction, falling silent. You shook with rage (but mostly the face you were now freezing cold and _wet_ ) and when you blinked, something slid into your eyes and making them sting. “Fuck,” you hissed, rubbing at it until you could see again. It was your makeup from your Halloween costume getting everywhere. When you looked back over to the inner part of the covering, you saw the wolf had been replaced by Aaron...but then it hit you the wolf _was_ Aaron.

“You...okay?” Aaron panted, looking over at you.

“I’m fucking cold, but yeah,” you muttered. You turned to the man on the ground. “You realize I’m a water being, right? Like, if you were trying to drown me, that was a dumb fucking idea.” He chuckled, spitting out a mouthful of blood.

“Wasn’t about you, little mermaid,” he informed. “I couldn’t give less of a shit how that ended up for you.”

“Wow, fuck you too,” you sneered, feeling that anger bubble up in your stomach. You were looking down at the man who’d held you at gunpoint, drugged and kidnapped you, and had tried to frame you for murder. Without the gun, you realized, he wasn’t nearly as terrifying.

“I think,” Aaron started, calling the man’s attention to him instead, “you have some explaining to do. The murders were trying to get my attention, I’m assuming. Keep me busy while you got some light trafficking done?”

“More or less,” he agreed, spitting out more blood.

“Then why her?” asked Aaron, nodding in your direction.

“The first one was supposed to be anyone,” the barman said shortly, “but a siren? That was too perfect. If I could blame it on a siren, that would definitely keep you busy since you keep such a close eye on the potentially dangerous ones. Plus, I knew you’d care it was _her_ when I saw her next.”

“What?” Aaron asked shortly. “When you saw her next? You mean, after I had already arrested her?”

“Yeah,” he answered, nodding. “She wasn’t in the plan at first. I didn’t even think you two could stand each other.”

“It’s...complicated,” you muttered, more to yourself than to him.

“Especially painful to assume your mate is capable of murder. That’s when I knew I had an angle with her,” he stated, looking from you to Aaron.

“Excuse me?” you shot, “His _mate?_ ”

“He marked you,” the man snarled, looking back from Aaron to you. “Did you know that? Did you know that you smell like that filthy werewolf?”

You looked from the man sprawled on the ground in front of you over to Aaron, who was determinedly not looking at you and continuing to glare at the man in front of him instead. “What are you talking about?” you demanded, turning back to the man on the ground.

“Of course you wouldn't smell it. I doubt you smell anything other than dirty ocean water and fish.” You opened your mouth to protest but he pressed on, “your dear sheriff marked you as his. You reek of him.”

You didn’t know how you to process that information. You glanced over to Aaron to see if the man was just bluffing but he was determined to not look at you, it seemed. Instead, you turned back to the bartender, still sitting and bleeding on the ground.

“What about when you tried to poison her?” Aaron asked, sounding particularly spiteful.

“The murders,” he started, “the first was to get your attention. The next ones were there to torture. Make you really look at her as if she was a criminal. Killing her? That was personal.”

“So, you toyed with me so you could keep him busy?” you asked, “that’s insane.”

“Keep him busy,” the man repeated, “torture him. Really make him suffer. A lot of reasons, really.”

“Wow,” you sighed. “That’s...total bullshit.” Both men looked over at you, eyebrows raised. You crossed your arms, staring down at him.

“I’m a fucking person,” you pointed out. “I’m a person that up until very recently could not stand him.”

“Thanks,” Aaron interjected in a sarcastic tone.

“Sorry,” you muttered, glancing over at him and offering him an apologetic look. “But like...I’m not a piece of food to hold out in front of him,” you stated, repeating what he’d said before.

“Except…” the guy trailed off, spitting more blood out of his mouth. “You are. And it worked. So.”

“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” Aaron told him, “because this the last thing you’ll be doing as a free man for a long time.” The man on the ground looked up to him before laughing. Aaron made a face, crossing his arms.

“Yeah?” the man laughed. “I’m glad you think so, but my associates will be here any second.”

Before anyone could say anything else, there was a commotion coming from the end of the building, making the man smile. But when flashlights blinded all of you, and you heard people addressing Aaron as ‘Sheriff’ in less than threatening tones, you realized it wasn’t the people the men were looking for, but back up. You watched his face contort into rage as the realization hit him.

“Yeah well, mine got here first,” Aaron informed, smirking. Once someone had reached the guy on the ground, Aaron turned his attention to you instead. He pulled you close, tucking you against him. “You’re freezing,” he muttered as you shivered against him, enjoying his warmth.

“No shit, I came out of the ocean,” you pointed out, and his chuckle rumbled in his chest, against your arm.

“Fair enough.”

The two of you got ushered out of the building not long after, but Aaron waited until the bartender had been taken out to move. It was like he needed to see him taken out with his own two eyes before he’d leave. It wasn’t long until someone was pulling you in one direction, and Aaron was needed somewhere else. He assured you he’d find you as soon as he could, and told the detective to make sure someone saw to you before he started asking questions. It turned out that “seeing someone” meant getting checked for injuries and dried off with magic. You were at least thankful to be dry.

The next time you and Aaron were alone felt like a lifetime later. You'd been sitting there, glad that no one was bothering you because you felt as if you’d been asked the same four questions all night, but also incredibly cold. Being dry definitely helped but you’d caught a chill you couldn’t shake. You sat on the hood of a car, shivering and out of nowhere, a blanket appeared on your shoulders. You looked to see where it'd come from to see Aaron, looking as exhausted as ever, was leaning against the car next to you, tie hanging untied around his neck.

“You alright?” you asked quietly, reaching out to dab at a cut on his forehead with the towel someone had given you to dry off hours ago, not realize it had already been dealt with. He winced at the contact but then he nodded.

“Just ready to sleep for the next decade,” he told you, looking over at you. “What about you, though? You're who I'm worried about.”

“You're always worried about me,” you joked, and he chuckled and nodded.

“Can't help it,” he admitted. “In my nature.”

A silence fell over the two of you. You were both exhausted from the night’s events, maybe even from everything in the last two weeks. Aaron let his eyes close, and after a few seconds, you could see his chest rising and falling slower. You we're sure he was asleep standing when he opened an eye, peeking over at you and raising his eyebrow.

“What’s going on in that head, doll face?”

“Are we going to talk about it?” you asked. He hummed in confusion, letting his eye close again.

“Talk about what?”

“The marking thing.”

Aaron's eyes shot open, and he looked over at you, looking pained. “I, uh…” he trailed off, “I didn't do it on purpose?”

“You can just accidentally mark people?” you asked skeptically.

“When I come in contact I have...particularly strong feelings for, the scent-marking kind of just happens,” he explained. “If you ask one of your roommates, I'm sure they could give you something to deal with it. Witches have a way of unfucking what nature does.”

“So, I smell like you?”

“Basically.”

“And you didn't do it on purpose?”

“No, I didn't,” he repeated. “It happened when I picked you up to toss you in the water and I didn't notice until I was going to put you in the back of my car. I wasn't going to say anything because I was busy trying to figure out if you'd killed anyone.”

“Maybe you should have just listened to me from the start,” you told Aaron, giving him an ‘I told you so’ look. He chuckled, reaching out to stroke your hair, and ending up wrapping an arm around you and tugging you closer. You shifted on the hood of the car, feeling those excited jitters you seemed to have with someone new. It was strange to think it was Aaron making you feel like that, but you weren't complaining.

“If I had a dollar for every time someone told me they were innocent, and was not actually innocent, I'd be a very rich man, sweetheart,” Aaron informed. You both laughed, though it was subdued by the exhaustion you both felt. You caught a whiff of the spicy musky scent you’d smelled on the beach two weeks ago.

“So, I smell like you now?” you asked.

“Yeah,” Aaron mumbled, “I…” he stopped short as you buried your face in the crook of his neck, taking in his scent fully and you could feel all the anxiety you'd been feeling recently ebb away. You pressed a kiss to his neck, smiling as you pulled away.

“Worse smells, I guess,” you mentioned. “I’ll get around to dealing with it. I’ve been walking around without knowing about it for what, almost a month now? What’s another couple days?”

“Fair,” he sighed, rubbing his thumb in circles against your arm. “I’m, uh, sorry I didn’t tell you? You were already angry and there was...you know, the murder thing.”

“I’m too tired to care right now,” you admitted, “we can argue about this later.”

“I’d expect nothing less.” He pressed a kiss to your head, and gave you a gentle squeeze. “Let’s get you home.”

“Please,” you yawned. “Though there’s a zero percent chance of me walking.”

“I figured,” he said, “that’s why we have these things called cars.” He patted the hood of the car you were sitting on, grinning at you. When you shot him a look, he chuckled and pressed a kiss to your cheek. “They serve purposes other than something for you to sit on,” he informed, standing up from his leaning position. You made a displeased noise as the warmth you’d been wrapped in disappeared, and you tugged the blanket he’d draped around your shoulders closer to you. He gave you an apologetic look before telling you that he was going to find whoever had the keys.

Aaron was gone long enough that you’d decided to scoot up on the hood of the car so that you could lean against the windshield. You let your eyes slip shut, taking the time to try and _actually_ relax. Now that everything seemed to be over, you could actually _breathe_ and that knot in your stomach that you’d had for a month was finally undoing itself. The only thing that was keeping you awake was the sheer amount of yelling that seemed to be going on. One of which was certainly the bartender, and you could tell by the various threats he was yelling. You couldn’t quite find it in yourself to care about him anymore. You’d seen him on the ground, bleeding, and in handcuffs. That was good enough for you.

“Please tell me she fell asleep.” Aaron’s voice was recognizable through all the other noise, and when you heard him, you opened your eyes to look at him. He was standing there, looking down at you with an affectionate look on his face. It was so strange to see him looking at you like that, but you weren’t exactly going to complain about it. It was nice, you had to admit.

“I’m not asleep,” you informed, yawning before sitting up. “You were just taking too long.”

“Little hard to find keys when they’re moving, doll face,” he told you, shaking his as he helped you off the car. “But you’re welcome for finding you a ride home.”

“You’re not coming with me?” you asked, giving him a confused look. He shook his head, taking your face in both his hands.

“I’ve got some work to do,” he explained, “but you’ve still got all my stuff in your living room, so I’ll be there as soon as I’m done.” He leaned down to kiss you sweetly. “You’re going to be alright without me for a little while.”

“I wasn’t worried about that,”you said, “Aaron, you’re exhausted. You look like you haven’t slept in a month. The paperwork can wait until the morning. Douchebag the Bartender isn’t going anywhere.” He chuckled, kissing you again.

“I will, I promise,” Aaron mumbled, resting his forehead against yours. “Just a couple things I need to do or else I’ll think about them and not actually sleep.”

“At least _try_ to be done before the sun’s up?” you suggested. Aaron laughed, pulling away from  you.

“I’ll try,” he told you, “promise.”

“Fine,” you said, nodding a little. He gave you the biggest smile he could muster before turning to the child-looking officer he’d brought back with him.

“Remember that house you were driving past for the last few weeks?” Aaron asked, glancing over to you and making a silent apology. When the officer nodded, he looked back over to him. “Good. Take her there, don’t leave until the front door is shut,” he told the officer. “And don’t try to make her sit in the back, she’ll bitch the entire way.”

“Hey!” you exclaimed, giving him a look. He chuckled, smirking over at you.

“Historically, you’ll bitch, doll face,” Aaron pointed out. “Now go home and get some sleep.” It took him nudging you to the passenger’s side door for you to stop glaring at him and actually get in. The officer got in too, and as he backed out towards the street, Aaron stood there, giving you a wave before the car turned out to the street. You sighed heavily, letting your eyes shut as the car made its way to your house.

“Sorry,” the officer mumbled, making you jump and whip your head around to look at him.

“What are you apologizing for?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Patrolling past your house every night,” he explained. “It was just part of the job. Nothing personal.”

“Oh, that’s not on you, kid,” you chuckled, “that’s on the prick who told you to do it.”

“It…” he trailed off, “it was the sheriff?”

“I figured as much,” you told him, smiling a little. “As I said, a prick.”

“Weren’t the two of you just…” he trailed off, as if he wanted to ask about you and Aaron but thought better of it mid-sentence. You laughed, shaking your head.

“It’s complicated,” you laughed, “don’t worry about it, kid.”

The rest of the short ride was silent, which you were more than alright with. It had been such a long night, and conversation was exhausting. You thanked the officer when you got out of the car, closing the door and dragged yourself up to your front door. You had expected to be able to collapse on the couch, but as soon as you were over the threshold, there was an uproar. Your friends were all in the living room; not just your roommates and Jon, but a good deal of the group from the bar. Jeremy was the closest to the door and when he saw you, he shouted something you couldn’t understand and pulled you into a hug.

“Yeah, alright,” you said slowly, “Jeremy, I’m fine, I promise. Please let go of me, I just want to sit down.” Jon and Lindsay hopped up from the couch to give you room and Jeremy pointed you in the right direction. You collapsed onto the couch, sighing heavily.

“What happened to you?” Lindsay asked quickly. “You went to the bar and by the time I got back to the group, you hadn’t gotten back. Aaron was _pissed_ , disappeared and never came back but we saw all the cops heading towards the marina.”

“It was the bartender,” you explained simply.

“Wait, what?” asked Barbara, “are you serious? What’d you ever do to him?”

“That...explains the beach bash,” Jon sighed, “we left our bottles at the bar.”

“That we did,” you agreed before looking over to Barbara. “And I did nothing to him. He had history with Aaron and apparently, he marked me at some point? So he assumed I was his mate so not only did he want to distract him with some murders from other things going on in the city, figured using me specifically would make it worse.”

“He _marked_ you?” Lindsay repeated. “Like, before any of this happened? Because if he did it recently, that’d make sense but before that?”

“Yeah,” you sighed. “The day Aaron decided to toss me in the ocean, he marked me. According to him, it was an accident and he didn’t notice when it happened.”

“Well, that explains what happened at the bar we can never go back to,” Lindsay pointed out.

“What?” You raised an eyebrow at her, and she nodded knowingly.

“I mean, the bartender tried to murder you,” she said, “clearly we can’t go back there.”

“No, not that,” you said quickly, waving the idea away. “The fact it explains what happened to me at the bar?”

“Oh!” Lindsay exclaimed. “Don’t you remember? The night we went out and you were dancing with that guy who looked scared shitless of Aaron when he went to get you a drink. If Aaron marked you, and that guy could smell it, that’d be enough to get him to back off.”

“Huh,” you said, nodding a couple times. “I guess that makes sense.”

“More importantly,” Jeremy started, and everyone turned towards him. “What happened when you didn’t come back tonight?”

You sighed heavily before launching into the story. You told them about how you’d taken the free shot and woken up at a dock, chained to the ground. You explained what Aaron and the bartender had said, trying to piece together what had even happened (you bitched about him calling you ‘little mermaid’ for a solid minute) and how you’d gotten shoved into the ocean. Jon snorted at that, but didn’t say anything. You mentioned the fact there’d been a wolf when you peeked over the dock but when you pulled yourself up onto it, Aaron had turned back. Jeremy spoke up then.

“Wait, he’d gone wolf?” he asked interestedly, “shit, if that place wasn’t a crime scene, I’d be able to collect some good shit.”

“You could always ask,” you pointed out, chuckling a little. “You have no problem asking me every other minute for my hair.” Jeremy made a face and shook his head vigorously.

“No fucking thanks,” Jeremy said quickly.

You snorted, looking at him for a moment before deciding to launch back into your story. You vented being annoyed at all the questions the police seemed to ask over and over again. You’d gotten annoyed that they kept asking the same thing, but eventually they’d given it up. You shrugged as you ended your story, motioning around as you mentioned that you were home. There was silence for a while before Lindsay broke the silence.

“Well...shit,” she said shortly. “That sucks.”

“Yeah,” you agreed. “All I want to do is get some fucking sleep, but I can’t.”

“We can leave,” Jeremy stated, standing up and pointing towards the door. You shook your head.

“I’m not going to sleep until Aaron comes back,” you informed.

“But he doesn’t live here?” Jeremy asked, looking around for confirmation. You and your roommates all pointed to the corner where all of Aaron’s stuff was.

“He’s been here for days,” you told him. “He said he’d come back for it all before he went home.”

“Oh,” Jeremy said, nodding. “Makes sense.”

You all sat around the living room for another couple of hours. You were mostly just there to sit and nod while everyone else talked about anything other the last month. You could sense how intentionally they were avoiding anything to do with all the murders or anything that’d happened that night. Once, Lindsay had gotten close to mentioning it, and Jon had cut her off to change the subject. You wouldn’t have minded much if they had. You weren’t even sure if you had it in you at the moment to care about any of it. You’d have to deal with it eventually, but you were definitely too exhausted to deal with it anytime soon.  Jeremy was explaining what Jack had brewing in the back of the shop when you finally dozed off.

It’d taken a moment for you to get your bearing when you were woken up. When you’d fallen asleep, there had been a lot of talking, but now it was quiet except for someone whispering to you. Whoever it was had their hand on your side, shaking you gently. You groaned, rubbing your face before opening your eyes to see Aaron looking down at you.

“What are you doing on the couch?” he asked, chuckling a little. “Too tired to get up the stairs again?”

“I was…” you stopped to yawn and sit up, “waiting for you.” You looked towards the window to see the sun was only starting to rise. “Would you look at that, you made it back before sunrise.”

“I said I’d try,” he pointed out. “You didn’t have to try to wait up for me.”

“Yeah, I did,” you countered, swinging your legs off the couch so you were sitting with your feet on the ground. “You’d have just gone home.”

“You’re the one who told me to go get some sleep,” Aaron chuckled. “Definitely easier in a bed.”

“That,” you started, standing up and stretching out, “is very true.” Without another word, you bent down to grab his hand and tug him up from kneeling. He stood up, giving you a confused look. You took a few steps forward, towards the stairs, but when he didn’t follow, you stopped, looking back at him.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Upstairs,” you stated matter-of-factly. “That’s where the bed is.”

“But I…” he started, before the realization hit him. “Oh.”

“You can leave if you want,” you said, “but I figured since we’re both going to sleep for the foreseeable future, we could just do it in the same place.”

Aaron smiled, “whatever you want, doll face.”

You nodded towards the stairs and this time when you moved, he followed after you, letting you lead the way upstairs. Nearly any other time, you’d feel bad for how messy your room was and that someone else saw it like that. The last month had been rough enough that you couldn’t care less. Once Aaron was in the room, you closed the door and let go of his hand. You considered pajamas for about a second before deciding to collapse into your bed, still wearing your clothes. You let out a delighted sigh, glad to finally be the one place you’d wanted to be for hours. You looked over at Aaron to see him tug his tie off and tossed it to the side. He got into the bed more gracefully than you had, but he seemed just as relieved to be there as you did. You rolled towards him, throwing an arm around his middle and burying your face in his chest. He smelled more like dog than usual, which if you were to hazard a guess, was because of the recently changing thing. You breathed in the scent of him, feeling more relaxed than you had in awhile. His arm curled around you, pulling you closer and you smiled, letting your eyes slip shut.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “About this whole thing. You getting dragged into that mess wasn’t cool.”

“Yeah,” you agreed. “But how about we deal with that when we wake up?”

“Sounds like a damn good suggestion, doll face,” he answered, kissing the top of your head.

You’d barely uttered a goodnight before you were asleep, face still buried in Aaron’s chest, his arm around you.


End file.
